


Reactions to the Legend

by Polish_Amber



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Overprotective, Post - Goblet of Fire, Protective Parents, Reaction, Sirius Lives, slightly cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polish_Amber/pseuds/Polish_Amber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Sirius is acquitted after the tournament and becomes Harry's guardian along with Remus.<br/>Everything is normal until Harry let's something slip making Sirius and Remus realize that they don't know about Harry's first 2 years. Now Harry has to explain all the death defying stunts. Cue some very overprotective Marauders...</p><p>**Edited from original posting on ff.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reactions: Before Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the characters will probably be a little OOC, hence why I did add a 'slightly cracky' tag. 
> 
> This was written several years ago, with the first few chapters written prior to the release of the Deathly Hallows so I apologise for any clear inconsistencies with later canon. 
> 
> Reposting from ff.net. Hope you enjoy!

It had started out as a normal day. It really had.

Alright, so for most people it wouldn't have been considered normal. But for these particular people living in this particular house, it was normal.

You see, Harry James Potter and his two guardians were not normal. In fact, they were rather far from normal, even by wizarding standards. That's right, Harry and his guardians happened to be wizards.

But what distinguished them from other wizards was the fact that Harry Potter happened to be the sole survivor of the Avada Kedavra curse and also happened to have defeated Lord Voldemort at the age of one. Rather impressive for a baby that could barely walk or talk.

And it wasn't just Harry James Potter that distinguished this rather odd household. You see, his primary guardian happened to be Sirius Black, the only man to have ever successfully escaped the wizarding prison, Azkaban. He was also the only man to have ever been sent to Azkaban when he was innocent of all charges against him.

And then came Remus Lupin; he wasn't quite as unique as the other two if you bypassed the fact that he was a werewolf. On the other hand, perhaps he wasn't quite so normal.

Both of these two men were also, much to Harry's chagrin, rather overprotective of their charge.

However, they had a reason to be. Just last year, Harry had been forced to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, one of the deadliest competitions ever made. Harry was forced to battle dragons, water demons, merpeople and, in the end, even Voldemort himself. Harry had nearly died at this battle.

The good news was that barely a week into the summer holidays, Peter Pettigrew was caught and in a trial that rocked the wizarding world, Sirius Black, infamous mass murderer, was discovered innocent of all charges against him and given guardianship of the boy-who-lived, Harry James Potter.

So now, the Ministry was forced to admit that Voldemort had returned under testimony of Wormtail, and Cornelius Fudge was facing an enquiry and would most likely be sacked. Life was good.

Or at least it would be if Sirius Black could stop brooding over the horrors that his godson had seen less than a month ago. His only consolation was that at least he was here to help Harry through this. A common thought that passed through his head as he looked fondly at his godson was _At least nothing like this ever happened in his first two years._

Right?

Sirius Black was about to get a reality check.

As was mentioned before, it had started out as a normal day. They had gotten up and had breakfast, Harry had gone for a bit of a fly (with Sirius watching his every move like a hawk. He was not quite convinced that Harry had fully recovered from the injuries he had received in the first task) and then they played chess.

It was after lunch when Remus, Sirius and Harry were all sitting in the living room just talking about a few random things that turned this day into one that they'd never forget.

Harry and Sirius had been arguing over who the better team was at Quidditch while Remus was occasionally listening and reading at the same time. Soon enough, Remus was drawn into to the good-natured argument.

"No way, Moony!" Sirius exclaimed. "The only way the Hawks would beat the Tigers is if the Tigers seeker’s broom was jinxed!"

"Um, not quite," Harry interjected before Remus could answer. "I mean, I had my broom jinxed in first year and I still caught the snitch. Well, I nearly swallowed it when I fell off my broom but still," he amended slightly.

He looked up at his two guardians to see them both staring at him with slack jaws. "What?" he asked in slight bewilderment.

"Harry," Sirius said slowly, "Just why was your broom jinxed? And… you fell off?" his voice was normal but inwardly he was imagining his innocent, sweet, little godson at age eleven trying to stay on a jinxed broom. The image didn't sit well with him. Remus was watching Harry carefully and wondering how on earth someone could get close enough to hurt his cub.

Harry's eyes widened when he realized that Sirius and Remus didn't know about what had happened in his first year. Or his second, come to think of it. And he really did not want to tell them. They would be even more protective then they were now, if that was even possible.

"Nothing. Forget I said anything," said Harry quickly, ducking his head.

"Harry," said Sirius, using a stern tone that he rarely bothered with.

"You know, that reminds me that Sirius and I really have no idea about your first and second years," said Remus lightly. "Perhaps you could enlighten us."

"Good idea, Moony," said Sirius approving. "And you can add just why your broom was jinxed as well."

Harry groaned and scanned the room for an escape. "Um, you know I think Ron needed help with some homework…" he said feebly, realizing that this wasn't going to work.

"Actually, I believe Ron never does his homework until the last minute," said Remus calmly.

"Just tell us Harry," said Sirius in a softer tone than before. "I can't be that bad," he added confidently, quite sure that it wouldn't be. After all, what were the chances of Harry's life being threatened every year that he attended Hogwarts?

 _You have no idea,_ Harry thought as he sighed and began apprehensively. "Well, um, alright… where do I start?"

"Why don't we go from when you got your first Hogwarts letter," said Remus kindly, somehow sensing that his cub was not quite ready to divulge what had happened at school. He figured it would be better to start with something safe, like his first Hogwarts letter. For some reason, Harry didn't look all that comforted. In fact, his face seemed to pale a little more.

"Um, alright," Harry said hesitantly.

Sirius and Remus exchanged an uneasy glance, for some reason they had a sense of foreboding that this wouldn't go the way they wanted it to.

"Ok, so it started a few days into summer holidays," Harry began his story, debating on just where to start but realizing gloomily that his guardians would remember the inconsistencies. "I went downstairs and around about in the middle of breakfast, the post came. Uncle Vernon told me to go get it and I did," Harry continued, omitting the fact that he had to dodge Dudley's smelting stick.

"Anyway, so when I got to the front door there was a bill, a letter from Aunt Marge," (Remus and Sirius exchanged a look when Harry mentioned 'Aunt' Marge) "and then a letter for me, from Hogwarts. I took all the letters into the kitchen and began to open mine when –" here Harry hesitated, knowing that from now on his story was quite likely to ignite his guardians tempers.

"Harry? Keep going, kid," Sirius encouraged, still unsure as to why his godson looked so uncomfortable.

Harry steeled himself and continued, saying it all very quickly, "Ok, so I started to open it but then Dudley told Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and they ripped the letter from my hand and then literally threw me and Dudley from the room."

"Wait, so the Dursleys didn't give you your Hogwarts letter?" Remus exclaimed.

"What do you mean, literally threw you out of the room?" asked Sirius, his eyes flashing.

Harry visibly winced, "You know, he might have maybe picked me up and chucked me out."

Sirius growled and went over to the couch where Harry was sitting and pulled the boy into a hug.

"Um, Sirius," said Harry, "I'm fine, it was nearly four years ago."

"I know," said Sirius unabashedly. "Anyway Harry, keep going. What convinced them to give you your Hogwarts letter?" he asked as he moved to the other side of the couch.

Harry winced once more and, figuring that this part would be best to get over with quickly, said in one breath, "Well, see, my bedroom back then was sort of a cupboard and Uncle Vernon was sort of scared and anyway he gave me a bedroom after that but burned my letter."

"Your bedroom was a cupboard?" Sirius asked in a voice that obviously meant he was trying to keep his anger at bay.

"Yeah," said Harry in a small voice, looking down and fidgeting.

"A cupboard? A cupboard!?" Remus muttered furiously. "Oh, those muggles. Making _my cub_ sleep in a cupboard!? Oh, just wait till you meet me on the full moon, you despicable muggles!"

"Um, Moony," said Harry, a little cautiously.

"Hm, oh don't worry Harry I'm fine," Remus said adding silently, _but they won't be!_ One look at his best friends' face meant that he was thinking the exact same thing.

"Keep going, kiddo," said Sirius, returning his full attention to his godson.

"Well, Uncle Vernon really didn't want me to go to Hogwarts and just kept burning all the letters. He even nailed down the mailbox and the doors and everything," said Harry, sounding upbeat in a way to take his guardians attentions from what he was actually saying. It didn't work very well.

Remus was muttering something like, "Idiots… full moon… my cub…" while Sirius had conjured a notebook and was scribbling something down. Harry had to wonder what their reactions to his second year when he had been starved would be. Somehow, he had the feeling that that year would not go well.

"Anyway, in the end, Uncle Vernon got so sick of all the letters that we all left because he thought that if we could 'shake them off' they would stop sending the letters. The day before my birthday, we ended up on this hut on a sea rock sort of place," said Harry, a lot more calmly now that the hard part was over. After all, nobody said he had to mention his sleeping conditions in the hut.

"So, we ended up staying there for the night. 'Course, Uncle Vernon didn't know how to make a fire so it was a little cold because of the storm but not that bad," Harry said, bending the truth a little.

"Where did you sleep?" asked Remus, knowing that if they had made Harry sleep in a cupboard for ten years, it was likely that it wouldn't be much better in a completely different place.

 _Why does he have to be so damn smart?_ Harry cursed silently. Outwardly, he smiled slightly and said, "It wasn't that bad, I mean I slept on the floor but I did have a blanket."

"Let me get this straight," Sirius cut in with narrowed eyes, "You slept on the floor of a hut out in the sea during a raging storm with only a single blanket?"

"Um, yeah," Harry mumbled, looking down.

Sirius exhaled loudly and the next thing that Harry knew, Sirius was in front of him and putting a blanket over him and quite literally tucking him in. Harry just looked at Sirius incredulously. Admittedly it was a very cold summer, but where had this come from?

"Um, Sirius?" Harry asked tentatively.

"What? You need to stay warm, what if you get a cold?" Sirius defended. "I refuse to let my godson stay cold any more than you already had to." Remus was nodding emphatically and even waved his wand in the direction of the fireplace to light it.

"Alright," said Harry slowly, nodding his head and looking between his two (clearly somewhat crazy) guardians.

"Alright kiddo, keep going but tell us if you're cold, ok?" Sirius sad brightly, settling back down on his own couch.

Somehow, Harry doubted he would get cold but he bit his tongue. "So, at exactly midnight, Hagrid showed up and gave me my Hogwarts letter in person. He also threatened Uncle Vernon and scared him so much that he could barely talk," Harry added, hoping that this would dissuade any further attempts to harm his relatives.

"Serves him right," Remus said under his breath, nettled over the treatment of his cub. Sirius nodded in agreement with the werewolf.

"Uh, anyway, so Hagrid lit a fire and made some food and everything. Oh, and he also gave me a birthday cake!" Harry said, suddenly remembering. He smiled at the memory.

Sirius and Remus vowed to thank Hagrid for bringing some happiness into their charges life and to also thank him for threatening Dursley of course!

"So anyway, Hagrid told me about Voldemort and about how Mum and Dad died," Harry continued, making Remus' eyes narrow when he realized that the Dursleys' had lied to Harry about his parents deaths.

"And then Uncle Vernon called Professor Dumbledore a 'crackpot old fool' which made Hagrid really mad," said Harry, smiling at the memory. "And then… well Hagrid gave my cousin Dudley a pig’s tail!"

They all roared with laughter and Remus amended his punishment slightly to not include the full moon. That didn't mean that they would go unpunished for treating Harry that way though.

"So, did Dursley decide to retreat after that then?" Sirius asked, still watching Harry like a hawk for any sign of the shivers.

"Yeah, and Hagrid gave me his coat to sleep under and then he took me for my supplies the next day," Harry said, this time with genuine happiness.

"Well, that was a bit of a rocky start," said Remus, a little more calm now that Hagrid had dealt some revenge on Vernon.

"Yep, now onto the Hogwarts years kid!" said Sirius happily, but still curious to know about that jinxed broom…

Harry winced a little and wondered, _is it possible for me to get grounded over something that happened three years ago?_


	2. Reactions: Year One, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that this was written a few years ago (these early chapters quite a few years ago!) and although I'm editing as I go along, I hope you'll forgive some of the OOCness and clunky writing that I haven't changed.

**-Reactions: Year One, Part One-**

"Alright, so um, should I start with when Hagrid and I went to Diagon Alley?" Harry asked with something akin to hopefulness in his voice. Nothing really important had happened at the Alley but it would be better to lay off on the dangerous stuff until he absolutely had to.

"Sure, Harry," Remus answered fondly.

"I would have wanted to hear about it anyway; I've always wanted to see the look on your face when you saw something magical," Sirius added with a wistful smile.

Harry laughed and said, "Well, I was pretty surprised. I kept on looking everywhere and I couldn't take my eyes off the goblins when we got to Gringotts."

"I bet," Sirius said, looking at his godson fondly.

Harry blushed slightly and continued, remembering that this was actually quite a pivotal point in the story. "Anyway, so Hagrid had the key to my vault and we went down in the carts –"

"Were you scared?" Remus interrupted, curious. "I remember James telling me about his first time and he said he was absolutely terrified, especially since there had been rumoured to be dragons there."

Sirius looked up sharply at that one – he had forgotten about those dragons (the Black family knew well that those were not unfounded rumours). "Harry, you didn't see any dragons, did you?" he asked calmly, trying not to let his over-protectiveness get the better of him.

Harry looked as though he didn't know quite what to answer but settled with a, "No, I didn't see any dragons that day. Hagrid mentioned that he really wanted one, though," he added as an afterthought.

"He was the same when we were at school," Sirius recalled with a laugh, calmer knowing that Harry had not been in any danger at Gringotts. "Thank Merlin he never got one!"

Harry winced slightly as he remembered a certain Norwegian Ridgeback that would appear later on in this story. He was not looking forward to the reactions of his guardians during that part at all.

"Um, anyway, so I went to my vault and then we had to go to another vault because Hagrid had to pick something up for Dumbledore," Harry continued, wanting to get off the uncomfortable topic for now. Uncomfortable for him, that is. His two guardians were completely oblivious; Harry wished he could keep it that way.

"What did he have to pick up?" Remus asked curiously.

"We didn't figure it out until ages afterwards," Harry answered. "It was Vault 713 and a top-security one to. But all Hagrid got out was a grubby little package, maybe about the size of a fist."

"Wait, so Hagrid didn't know what it was?" Sirius asked, confused.

"No, of course _he_ did," Harry answered, just as confused by his godfathers question.

"But then why did you say that 'we' didn't figure it out for ages," Sirius said.

"Oh, I was talking about me, Ron and Hermione," said Harry, comprehension dawning. "But I'll get to that part later."

"Yes, your shopping adventures are next," Remus said, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip from the cup of tea next to him.

"Not that much of an adventure, truth be told," Harry admitted. _I _f only I could say the same for the rest of the year!__ He found himself thinking. "Um, we went to Madame Malkins first, which is where I met someone else in same year as me for the first time."

"Make friends?" Remus asked.

"It was Draco Malfoy," Harry answered in disgust.

"Never mind," was Remus' only response.

"He let slip about Quidditch and some of the Houses, which I had no clue about back then of course," Harry continued. "But he reminded me so much of Dudley, acting like he was better than everyone else, that there was no way I could like him."

Sirius felt a surge of hatred towards Harry's so-called relatives.

"So what happened next?" Remus asked, wanting to get out of dangerous territory. He was not about to let Padfoot go and hex Harry's relatives. Not without him there to help.

"Hagrid and I went for ice-cream where Hagrid enlightened me a little more about Quidditch and Hogwarts," Harry answered. "After that, we went and got my school supplies. Oh, and Hagrid gave me Hedwig, my first real birthday present," Harry added, his eyes glowing with happiness.

"Harry," Remus said with a raised eyebrow, "Just what do you mean by 'your first real birthday present?"

Harry instantly realized his mistake. How was he supposed to get out of this one without the ultimate result of grave bodily harm towards his relatives? "Well, what I meant was that Hedwig was the first gift that I actually liked."

"Why, what sort of gifts did you get beforehand?" Sirius asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry mumbled something incoherently. At least it was supposed to be incoherent. Remus' enhanced werewolf senses meant that he was able to hear it. He narrowed his golden eyes and said slightly coolly, "What do you mean they gave you socks on your birthday or just ignored it?"

"What?!" Sirius said sharply.

Harry shied away slightly and said in a soft voice, "It really doesn't matter. The point is I got Hed –mmph!" The second part of his sentence was incomprehensible because Sirius had gotten up and crushed Harry in a hug.

"Um, Sirius?" came Harry's muffled voice from where his head was nestled in Sirius' strong chest.

Sirius drew back, muttering something about muggles and Azkaban being too good for them with the way they had treated his precious godson.

"Sirius?" Harry said again, fearing for his godfather’s sanity.

"Don't worry Harry, I'm fine," Sirius said with false cheerfulness. He started fussing over the blanket again, as it had come loose while Sirius had been hugging (or suffocating, depending on the way you looked at it) Harry.

"Sirius, I'm fine," Harry objected after Sirius had been fiddling with the blanket for a good few minutes. "I'm not cold! If anything, I'm hot!"

That was really the wrong thing to say as Sirius immediately started feeling Harry's forehead for any sign of a fever. "Honestly, I'm fine!" Harry half-begged, trying to get his godfather to stop fussing.

"Hmph," was Sirius' only response. It took at least five minutes for the dog animagus to be satisfied that his godson was not sick and was not going to get cold. Sirius then went back to his own couch and made a mental note to completely spoil Harry come July 31st.

"Keep going, cub, I believe it's only your wand left," Remus said encouragingly.

"Oh, right, we went to Ollivanders after that and I got my wand. Ollivander completely freaked me out though," Harry added as an afterthought.

"What do you mean, freaked you out?" Sirius said with a low growl.

Harry groaned almost imperceptibly. He loved living with Sirius and Remus a lot more than he did living with the Dursleys, but the protectiveness could get ridiculous – he hadn’t even gotten to the actual dangerous parts yet. "He was just sort of scary," he answered, rolling his eyes. "And he was really weird when he told me that my wand is the brother to Voldemort's."

Both Sirius and Remus looked sceptical that this was why Harry had been 'freaked out' but let it go and nodded to urge Harry to continue.

"So that was my first trip to Diagon Alley," Harry concluded that part of his story. Now came the hard parts… Thinking about his guardian’s reactions so far, Harry started to wonder if there was a reasonable way to obfuscate some of the events.

"So, Hogwarts next!" Sirius exclaimed, happily oblivious. After all, nothing too bad could have happened with Dumbledore there, right?

"Right… So obviously I stayed at the Dursleys for the rest of the summer and they took me to Kings Cross on the first of September," Harry narrated quickly.

"That was kind of them," Remus noted, sounding rather surprised.

Harry just nodded, not mentioning that the only reason they had taken him was because they had to go up to London anyway. That would just mean that his guardians would be hell bent on revenge… even more so than they were now.

"Yeah…" Harry said trailing off slightly. "Anyway, I had absolutely no clue how to get onto the platform –" Here, he was interrupted once more.

"You mean Petunia didn't tell you? Because she was there when Lily was dropped off and walked through the barrier the first several times," Remus said, his eyes narrowing.

"Uh, no," said Harry, wincing slightly. Unfortunately Padfoot saw the wince and immediately thought that Harry was in some type of pain.

"You okay, love?" he asked, getting over to Harry's part of the couch in less than a heartbeat. He felt Harry's forehead with his hand and added worriedly, "You seem a little hot."

"I'm fine," said Harry through gritted teeth.

"Anyway, so I ended up asking the Weasley's for help," Harry said loudly, hoping that the continuation of the story would stop Sirius from going on about the cold. He shuddered (not literally - Sirius would probably give him about another five blankets if he thought Harry was cold) to think what would happen if they found out about the fact that he had been starved.

"Did you know the Weasleys back then?" Remus asked curiously.

"No, I just ran into them and I asked Mrs Weasley how to get onto the platform," Harry answered, "She was really nice about it."

"I bet Mrs Weasley just couldn't resist those big, innocent green eyes and the…" Sirius rambled on fondly, making his godson blush.

"So!" Harry said loudly, making Remus laugh a little and Sirius stop his rambling about just how _cute_ his godson must have been at eleven.

"I got onto the platform and, with some help from Fred and George, got my trunk into a carriage. Um, afterwards I may have sort of eavesdropped on the Weasleys," Harry continued, looking down at the last part.

He needn't have worried. Sirius' only reaction was, "My little marauder!" and a proud sniff. Remus made a note to himself to talk to Padfoot about that – not all eavesdropping was harmless, particularly considering the reformation of the Order that would likely invade their lives.

_Maybe that's the reaction I'll get when I get to the serious rule-breaking later on,_ Harry thought to himself hopefully. However, the other part of him said, _with the amount of times you could have gotten killed? Not a chance._

"So, did you make any friends on the train?" Sirius asked, recalling his own first train ride somewhat wistfully.

"Uh, yeah," Harry said, snapping out of his previous thoughts. "Ron asked if we could share the compartment and we ended up talking heaps and made fast friends."

"Did you have lots of chocolates and lollies?" Sirius asked mock sternly.

Harry laughed and answered, "Yes, Sirius, I had lots of stuff off the trolley."

"Good," said Sirius, satisfied.

"What about Hermione?" Remus prompted.

"Er, well, we met her," Harry admitted. "But she was acting all know-it-all so Ron and I didn't really like her much. Not yet, anyway."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a knowing glance. The same had actually happened between James and Sirius as they hadn't bothered to look beyond the last name. That had changed when James had stood up for Sirius after a few Slytherins started to tease him because he was a 'blood-traitor'.

"Then when we got to Hogwarts – oh, no wait, I forgot, Ron also mentioned that there had been a break-in at Gringotts," Harry added suddenly, having just remembered this fact.

"Wait, there was a break-in at Gringotts?" Sirius asked in surprise, brow furrowed.

"Yes, I remember reading about that," Remus said, nodding. "Come to think of it, it was on your birthday, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was, but we didn't find that out till later," Harry said.

"Interesting, but not really relevant to this… So, you went on the boats with Hagrid up to the castle – wait, you didn't fall in did you?" Sirius said, the first part casually but the second part in what Harry had recently dubbed 'overprotective Padfoot voice'.

"No, Sirius," Harry said rolling his eyes.

"Good," Sirius said nodding.

"And then Professor McGonagall informed you about the Houses and gave her normal speech, right?" asked Remus.

"Yeah," responded Harry. "Ron kept going on about having to fight a troll."

Remus (unsuccessfully) tried to stifle a snicker and said, "James and Sirius tried to do the same thing and ended up terrifying everybody."

"Says the one who said we were going to have to do magic and made everyone have nervous breakdowns," Sirius retorted.

"So, I'm guessing you were surprised when you found out about the Sorting Hat," Remus said, looking over at his surrogate nephew and completely ignoring what his best friend had just said.

"That's an understatement," Harry laughed. "Well, like you know, both Neville and Hermione got sorted into Gryffindor and Malfoy into Slytherin."

Both of his guardians nodded and Harry bit his lip, wondering how much to reveal about what the Sorting Hat had said to him.

After a pause, Remus said encouragingly, "Harry? Keep going, cub. What did the Sorting Hat say to you?"

"Well," Harry said, hesitating and biting his lip in worry.

"Come on kiddo, Remus and I always want to hear what you've got to say," Sirius said comfortingly.

"Um, well the hat sort of wanted to put me in Slytherin," Harry mumbled.

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look of surprise and then Sirius went over and kneeled down in front of Harry so that they were eye to eye. "Hey, Pronglet, it doesn't matter if the hat wanted to put you in Slytherin. Nothing would ever make me or Moony stop loving you. Even if you were a Death Eater, we would still love you. We would be mad at you, but we'd love you," he said sincerely, putting a finger under Harry's chin and using it to tip his godsons chin up so that Harry was looking him in the eyes.

Remus also came over and gave Harry a reassuring hug.

Harry smiled and then, after a few seconds, drew back. Remus returned to one of the sofa's closer to Harry so that he would be close in case his cub needed more reassurance.

Sirius, on the other hand, stood up and from his position in front of Harry and then sat down next to him on the couch with one arm around the boy.

"So, kiddo, you've been sorted! What's next?" Sirius asked cheerfully, but also inwardly vowing to curse whoever had made his godson so insecure.

Harry smiled and thought to himself,

_Maybe the protective guardians thing isn't that bad. No, wait, scratch that. Death defying stunts are next._

 


	3. Reactions: Year One, Part Two

\--------- **Last time on Reactions-----------------**

" _So kiddo, you've been sorted! What's next?" Sirius asked cheerfully, but also inwardly vowing to curse whoever had made his godson so insecure._

_Harry smiled and thought to himself,_

_Maybe the protective guardians thing isn't that bad. No, wait, scratch that. Death defying stunts are next._

**\----------Reactions: Year One Part Two----------------**

"Right, so… where should I start," Harry asked, fidgeting a little.

Remus laughed slightly and said in a slightly teasing tone, "Well, your first day of classes would be a good place to begin."

"Er, right," said Harry, wondering if it would be possible to skip potions. On second thoughts, he didn't really mind if Snape was on the marauders bad side. Maybe he would get to see what they did to him…

"Harry?" Sirius prompted, looking at the boy nestled under the covers.

"Er, right," said Harry, blinking. "So, um, nothing really interesting happened on the first day. I mean, we were late for Transfiguration and McGonagall took off points."

"It was your first day!" Sirius exclaimed incredulously. "Surely they can't fault you for getting lost!" Harry just shrugged in response.

"Keep going cub," said Remus.

"Then we had potions," said Harry, shuddering at the thought.

"Are you cold?" Sirius asked immediately, looking at his godson concernedly.

"No, just remembering that particular potions experience," Harry answered innocently, thinking that there were a few up-sides to over-protective guardians.

"Why?" Sirius growled. "What did that greasy git do to you?" Remus threw Sirius a reproaching look for bad-mouthing a teacher in front of Harry but the dog animagus judiciously ignored it.

"Well, first he called me a 'celebrity'," said Harry in disgust, remembering how much he hated that title. "Then, he asked me a whole bunch of questions that I had absolutely no clue what the answers were and then he took off points because I told him that Hermione had the answers and also because I happened to be sitting next to Neville," Harry ranted, getting completely lost in the memory.

Sirius' eyes were narrowed and he was muttering furiously under his breath, "Greasy git… deserves… gonna kill him… taunting my godson!"

Harry inwardly rejoiced. He was finally going to get revenge on Snape for all those years of hell in his classroom.

Remus' eyes had glints of gold in them and it was obvious he was none-too-happy with his former colleague but still said calmly, "Keep going Harry."

"Um, after the lesson Ron and I went down to Hagrid's," said Harry, trying to recall his memories. "Oh, now I remember - that was where I found out that the Gringotts break-in was on the same day as my birthday. When I asked Hagrid about it he changed the subject, not very well I might add."

Remus and Sirius both laughed; it was true, Hagrid was an absolutely horrible liar. You couldn't find a more loyal man anywhere but subtlety was definitely not his strong point.

"Oh!" said Harry, "I nearly forgot to mention our flying lesson!"

"Do tell, Pronglet," said Sirius, smiling at the carefree attitude his godson was currently showing. This was far better than the haunted teen from the last few weeks: it seemed as though this was a good idea.

Which it was… for Harry. Not for Sirius' and Remus' hearts though…

"Well, we were with the Slytherins," Harry started, rolling his eyes. Sirius grinned, anticipating some Malfoy humiliation.

"So, first we got the whole lecture on how to hold a broom and mount it properly. But then," Harry began his sentence.

Sirius and Remus threw a glance at each other, wondering if this was where the jinxed broom came in. Sirius was sitting up, a little more tense as he listened carefully to Harry's next words.

"Neville got scared and rose up on his broom too early," Harry completed, slightly confused when Sirius let out an audible sigh of relief.

Sirius, noticing Harry's look of confusion, said, "Don't worry about it, love, just keep going."

"Right, anyway, so Madam Hooch tells all of us that if we even think about flying then we're good as expelled while she took Neville up to the hospital wing," Harry explained.

"That was an… interesting lesson," Remus said, nodding.

"Oh, I'm not done yet," Harry stated.

"Why, what happened next?" Sirius queried curiously.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry answered simply.

"Of course," said Sirius, rolling his eyes. "I should have known. What did he do?"

"Well, first I should say that Neville's gran had sent him a remembrall as a gift," Harry explained before continuing on to the actual story. "Anyway, it must have fallen out while Neville had been flying because the next thing we knew Malfoy had got a hold of it and was calling Neville a bunch of stupid names."

Sirius growled softly. No good Slytherin scum.

"Well, I defended Neville," Harry continued, either not hearing Sirius or choosing to ignore him.

Sirius smiled at Harry and commented affectionately, "Defending your friends?"

Harry smiled before continuing, "Of course, Malfoy, the git, decided to hide it up a tree or some other equally bright plan, so he flew off with it." Harry hesitated a moment here.

Remus caught the pause and probed slightly wearily: "Did you go up after him?"

"Well… yes," Harry admitted.

"And what did Malfoy do," Sirius asked calmly, trying not to let his imagination of what had happened run away with him.

"Well, we argued a bit in the air," Harry answered, "But then Malfoy chucked it -"

"Harry," Remus interrupted, sounding as though he was dreading the answer to the question he was about to ask. "You didn't go after it… did you?"

Harry winced slightly. "Well, yeah, I did. But I caught it and I didn't get hurt!" he added hurriedly, hoping this would stop any lectures.

"What happened next," Sirius asked edgily, glad that this was not the jinxed broom moment.

"Erm, well, McGonagall appeared," said Harry, wincing as he remembered how he had felt at the time.

Remus whistled and said, "Well, I don't envy you Harry. McGonagall is definitely the worst when it comes to handing out punishments."

Harry smiled mischievously and responded. "Well, that's what I thought. But first she told me to go with her, ignoring what everyone was saying."

Sirius was now scowling, he liked McGonagall but sometimes she cared too much about the rules, especially if she would punish his godson for helping a friend. If anything, Malfoy ought to be punished for engendering a situation in which both young children had endangered themselves. Reflecting on that thought a moment, he decided it had nothing to do with bias at all.

Remus, on the other hand, was looking thoughtful. Harry didn't seem too unhappy thinking about it, in fact he seemed nearly… happy. Hopefully that meant that McGonagall didn’t come down too hard on him.

"So she took me up to the castle and first went to Quirrell's class to get 'Wood'," Harry continued.

Sirius rose an eyebrow and was about to ask just what he meant by  _wood_ when Remus spoke up. "Wood? Wasn't he a seventh year when I was teaching? And the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain as well, if I recall correctly."

"Yep, that’s him." Harry nodded, trying to suppress his smile. "So she asked for Wood and then took us to an abandoned classroom where she told me that," here Harry stopped to take a breath, "That I made the Quidditch Team as seeker!"

"You're joking!" Sirius exclaimed, giving Harry a huge hug. "I knew you were brilliant but I never knew that you made the team on your  _first_ year!"

"Harry, that's wonderful," Remus praised warmly. "You have no idea how much Sirius and your father tried to get Minerva to break that rule."

"Yeah, and you managed it without even trying," Sirius said proudly, ruffling his hair.

Harry nodded and continued happily, "Yep, it was wicked. Ron was so surprised when I told him but then, well, Malfoy showed up. Again."

"Ha, what was the look on his face when he found out that you made seeker," Sirius asked, a proud glint still evident in his eyes. Harry found himself hoping that it would stay there for the next part or two.

"Well, Wood wanted us to keep it a secret so we couldn't tell him," Harry began. "But he started taunting us again and ended up challenging me to a wizards duel in the trophy room… at midnight."

Sirius looked torn as to what to think about this while Remus commented, "The Trophy Room? The one on the third floor next to the forbidden corridor?"

Sirius looked up sharply at that, as much as he wanted Harry to get one up over on Malfoy, he would prefer that it happened in a way there wasn't such a high chance that Harry get hurt. "Did you agree?" he asked, knowing that even if he said yes he couldn't really tell him off seeing as he had done the same thing countless times.

"Well, no," Harry admitted. Sirius face lit up until Harry added, "Ron agreed for me." Sirius' expression fell and he just hoped that Harry wasn't that close to that corridor.

"So what happened?" Remus asked, almost cautiously.

"Well, Ron and I stayed up and went down at about quarter to," Harry started. "But then we ran into Hermione who kept on trying to tell us off. She followed us outside the portrait hole where we met Neville who had forgotten the password. Of course, with our luck, the Fat Lady had gone for a nighttime stroll!" Harry said exasperatedly.

Sirius nodded sympathetically, "She always does that at the  _worst_  times."

Remus agreed and added, "Yes, you wouldn't believe how many times we got caught out after curfew because we couldn't get into the common room."

"So, what, all of you had to go together?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Worst thing was that I didn't even have my invisibility cloak yet. Or the Marauders Map for that matter. So we somehow ended up getting there without getting caught, but then Malfoy didn't show up! And we heard Filch just around the corner."

"Wait, so Malfoy tipped Filch off?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly disbelieving. At Harry's nod he continued exasperatedly, "That kid is a right idiot. At least Snape always kept his word. Even though he tried to get us expelled he still did it in less underhanded ways than that."

"It seems as though Malfoy is slightly too spoiled," Remus added disgustedly, remembering the child from his classes with the Slytherin.

"Yeah," Harry said shrugging. "Anyway, we obviously decided to run away but then we ran into Peeves!"

Sirius groaned and remarked, "Kiddo, I'm beginning to think you have the worst luck."

"You have no idea," Harry agreed, rolling his eyes. "So, as I'm sure you can guess, Peeves told Filch where we were. We ran even harder when we ran into a sort of a dead end. It only had one door and it was locked. Luckily Hermione had read ahead and unlocked it with an  _Alohomora_ charm."

Remus looked uneasy; he didn't like where this was going. Sirius remained oblivious.

"Well, we heard Peeves taunting Filch and, in the only stroke of luck that night, he didn't tell on us," Harry said before pausing, wondering if there was any way to put this to make it seem less dangerous.

Remus sighed at the pause. Looked like he was right after all. Sirius also seemed to string the clues together at the prominent pause… Third floor… locked door…

"We turned around," Harry said hesitantly, "And we sort of saw a giant three-headed dog that was snarling at us."

Harry looked at his guardians hesitantly and saw that Sirius looked pale and was about to faint. Remus wasn't faring much better. Even if he had expected the corridor to be the forbidden one, there was no way that he would have ever guessed that something like  _that_ would be in it.

Sirius seemed to have gone along the same train of thought for he said incredulously and also slightly angrily, "What on earth was Dumbledore thinking, putting a… a…  _thing_ like that in a castle full of children!"

Harry shrugged and realized belatedly that he had probably gotten the Headmaster in trouble. But then again, Dumbledore was already in trouble with the two marauders for his decision in Harry's guardianship. And, Harry reflected, this most likely wouldn't be the last time that Dumbledore had done something that his guardians wouldn't approve of.

Remus was muttering as well, quite angry himself, "He let  _my cub_ be in the same room as something that could kill him?!? That senile old fool!"

Harry looked slightly startled at the extent of his guardians anger and was very glad that he wasn't Dumbledore.

"Kiddo, please tell me that you got out of there straight away," Sirius said in a voice of forced calm. He knew Harry seemed to have a 'saving people' thing and wouldn't have put it past him to get everyone else out and forget about himself.

"Uh, Of course," Harry stated. "We all ran straight out the second we comprehended what we had seen. Ran straight back to Gryffindor Tower without looking back."

"Smart," Sirius praised, looking highly relieved as he ruffled the dark hair next to him.

"Yeah, but then Hermione mentioned something else about the dog," Harry added. Sirius drooped again.

Remus rose and eyebrow and said disbelievingly, "I know she always managed to catch all the details, but she still managed to do so in front of a massive three-headed dog?!"

"Yep," replied Harry off-handedly.

"Well, what else did she notice?" Sirius asked with forced patience, thinking that if it was another crazy animal then he would personally lead Moony to Dumbledore's office under the light of full moon.

"That the dog happened to be standing on a trapdoor," Harry said. "Ron and I figured that it was –"

"The package from Vault 713," Remus completed, looking thoughtful. For those who knew him, it was quite clear that Remus had in no way forgotten his anger with the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Harry nodded. "Ron and I were really curious as to what it could be but it was driven out of our minds during breakfast the next morning."

"Was it the look on Malfoy's face?" Sirius asked, hoping so. That little blond idiot could have gotten his godson killed!

"Well, that too," Harry admitted with a laugh, remembering Draco's look of disbelief quite vividly. "But what I originally meant to say was that I got my broomstick!"

Sirius laughed and ruffled his godson's hair fondly, masking the regret that he felt over the fact that he hadn't been the one to buy Harry's first (real) broom. When his godson had been a baby and Sirius had bought him his first children’s broom, he had wanted to turn it into a tradition (he’d rather been looking forward to fighting James for it).

Harry laughed once more as he suddenly recalled what had happened next. "The funniest thing was when Malfoy noticed that I had a broom and told on me only to have the teacher congratulate me on getting the 'special permission' to have one!" Harry was laughing at the memory and his two guardians laughed as well, knowing that Malfoy must have been absolutely furious, especially since, in a roundabout way, it had been because of the blond that Harry had gotten onto the team.

"So, what next," Remus asked, suppressing his laughter.

Harry cocked his head to one side as he tried to sort out the memories of that year, "Well, nothing really important happened after that until Halloween. Well, I had my first Quidditch practice," he added as an afterthought.

"So what happened on Halloween?" Sirius asked, slightly dreading the answer. Ever since the death of Lily and James he had believed that Halloween was cursed. The fact that Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire on the so-called holiday had only fuelled this belief.

"Well, I suppose it started in the Charms lesson that day," Harry said thoughtfully. "We were learning how to levitate objects."

Remus nodded and noted idly, "One of the most interesting lessons in Charms. Although I recall James and Sirius decided to levitate their feathers under people's noses to make them sneeze."

"Me?" Sirius asked innocently. "I think you might be losing your memory in your old age."

"But aren't you both the same age?" Harry asked innocently, hoping to prolong their argument so that he could wait longer until he had to tell them about the troll.

"Yes, but Moony has grey hairs, so he's older," Sirius said, as though this made perfect sense.

Remus snorted and rolled his eyes at his best friend’s logic. "Well, as much as I would love to argue over who is older, I believe Harry has a story to finish."

_Damn,_ Harry thought as both marauders turned back to him.

"So, you were telling us about your Charms lesson?" Remus prompted.

"Yeah," Harry said, sighing before continuing with slight reluctance. "I ended up pairing with Dean while Ron got stuck with Hermione."

Remus winced and remarked slightly sarcastically, "That must have ended well."

Harry responded with a slight grin. "Well, actually, it ended up with Hermione crying in the girls toilets because Ron had basically said that she was a know-it-all with no friends."

Sirius winced reflexively as he said, "Ouch."

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "She didn't even end up going to classes! She didn't show up to the feast either."

"Poor thing," Remus said sympathetically. "Ron must have really hurt her feelings."

"Did you find her?" Sirius asked.

"Well, sort of," Harry said slowly.

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Sirius asked warily, just knowing that he wasn't going to like the answer.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes before opening them and quickly saying in one breath: "Well, Quirrell had burst in and told us that a troll had gotten into Hogwarts. We were told to go to our dormitories when Ron and I remembered that Hermione didn't know about the troll and we kind of found her and we all kind of… fought off the troll together."

Sirius and Remus sat in stunned silence for a moment before comprehending what they had just been told.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!!" they both yelled simultaneously, jumping up from their respective seats.

Harry winced and ducked his head down to prepare for the tirade.

" _WHAT_ ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING, GOING WITHIN ONE HUNDRED FEET OF A FULLY GROWN TROLL?!" Sirius ranted, thinking about how close his godson must have been to getting killed.

"Do you know how  _dangerous_ that was?" Remus asked incredulously, visibly trying to calm himself down.

"We had to or Hermione would have gotten killed," Harry protested, not actually looking his guardians in the eye. He wondered vaguely how Mrs Weasley had reacted when Ron had told her about this.

Remus narrowed his eyes and stated angrily, "Sirius and I will be having a  _word_  with Dumbledore about this, you can rest assured."

Sirius nodded vehemently but also added to his godson sternly, "Even if Dumbledore was a completely idiotic moron that doesn't mean that you go and fight trolls on your own!"

Harry knew better than to say that Ron and Hermione had been with him. Somehow, he didn't think that this was what Sirius wanted to hear.

"You are so grounded for that, kiddo," Sirius also added, sitting back down on the couch.

"But it was nearly four years ago!" Harry protested.

"Don't care," was the only answer he got.

\---------------------------------------


	4. Reactions: Year One, Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one went through quite a bit of editing from the original, I think I added about 500 words... I hope you enjoy it :)

" _You are so grounded for that kiddo," Sirius also added, sitting back down on the couch._

" _But it was nearly four years ago!" Harry protested._

" _Don't care," was the only answer he got._

_\-------_

Harry rolled his eyes; this was the major downside of overprotective guardians. And he hadn't even gotten to the cursed broom yet… Harry inwardly groaned: that damned broom was next!

"So, what's next?" asked Sirius, slightly calmed down. "And it had better not include any _trolls_ ," Sirius added sternly.

"It doesn't include trolls, specifically. Well, not a conscious one," Harry said, evading the question.

"Just what is that supposed to mean," Sirius demanded suspiciously. He was already angry at that old coot that called himself a _headmaster._ If the man had allowed even more things to occur…

"Er, never mind," Harry winced. "Anyway, so me, Hermione and Ron became best friends after that."

"Hermione, Ron and _I,_ " Remus corrected.

"Whatever," dismissed Harry. "Anyway, so Hermione started to break the rules a little more as well."

"Being a bad influence, Harry?" Remus queried with a smile.

Harry shrugged innocently and stated, "I have no idea _what_ on earth you're talking about Remus."

But then his smile faded as he tried to figure out how on earth he was going to get away with this. At least he wouldn't get grounded – he still couldn't believe that Sirius had actually grounded him – but Sirius would refuse to let him out of his sight.

"Alright, so then came my first Quidditch Game – against Slytherin, as luck would have it," he said, rolling his eyes. "At least Malfoy wasn't on the team yet."

"You would've beaten him anyway," Sirius said confidently.

"Maybe," responded Harry, shrugging. "Anyway, so like I said, after Halloween was the first Quidditch Match of the season. Madam Hooch made her whole speech about a fair game – kind of pointless when you're dealing with the Slytherins," he added as an afterthought.

"Was it as bad as the final in your third year?" Remus asked with slight dread.

"Nuh, not quite that bad," Harry replied, recalling the match in question somewhat wistfully.

"Why? What happened? I don't know if that was one of the matches I saw," Sirius enquired wearily.

Remus snorted and answered: "Trust me, Padfoot, if you don't know what match we're talking about then you didn't see it. It put some of yours and James' matches to shame, I swear."

Sirius rose an eyebrow and remarked, "I don't know if I want to know."

"Lets’ just say it included McGonagall swearing, over a dozen penalties and a lot of 'mistaking' heads for bludgers," Harry listed, saying the word ‘mistaking’ with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

Sirius blinked several times and said, "You'll have to tell me about that one later. But for now, continue."

Harry sighed and conceded: "If I must."

Sirius’ eyebrow rose again and he commented resignedly, "You know, that doesn't exactly foreshadow well."

Harry just refrained from sighing and reflected, "Well, it actually didn't start that bad. Gryffindor was in the lead, Slytherin wasn't cheating too much and then I saw the snitch." Here, Harry paused, wondering how to word this the best way.

_Why am I getting the feeling that this is where that broom is going to come in?_ Sirius thought to himself, starting to tense as his worry exponentially increased. A voice in his head answered, _Because this would be the most logical place for a story about the cursed broom to appear. And you're starting to realize that Harry's school life wasn't as calm as you wanted it to be. No thanks to that meddling old coot._

"So, you and the Slytherin Seeker gave chase," Remus surmised. "But then what happened?"

"Well, to tell you the truth I don't really know," Harry admitted. "I was flying after the snitch and the broom started bucking and, erm, trying to throw me off."

"And then please tell me that the stupid goat that has the gall to call himself a headmaster came and stopped you from falling," Sirius said, the fury he was restraining evident in his voice and the pale blue eyes that were nearly glowing with energy.

"Er, not really… I’m fairly certain he wasn’t actually there," admitted Harry, wincing slightly, knowing that this would just get the headmaster into more trouble. But at least Dumbledore couldn't get grounded like he could.

Harry's answer made Remus look up sharply as he had also believed that Sirius’ assumption to be the logical result of this situation. With narrowed golden eyes he demanded, "And just why wouldn't he be there?"

"I don't know," Harry replied, panicking a little, making Remus' eyes soften and Sirius say, "Never mind that now, keep going, kiddo."

"Um, well, obviously Hermione, Ron and the others had figured out that something was up," Harry continued, steering away from talk about his own predicament.

Sirius snorted and muttered, "They better have."

"Well, Hermione noticed that it must be a jinx or hex or whatever," Harry began hesitantly. He didn't know quite how to word this so it would cause the least amount of damage possible. Getting Snape into trouble was one thing. Getting Snape killed by vengeful guardians was another.

"And who was it," Sirius growled, envisioning many scenarios with the person that dared harm his godson on the opposite side of his trigger happy wand.

Remus agreed whole-heartedly, though his scenarios included something along the lines of his clumsiness with potions. After all, it wouldn't be his fault if he found that foul person and saw him on the night of the full moon after forgetting to include the key ingredient of his Wolfsbane Potion.

"Well, the theory, and notice I said theory," Harry added quickly, "Was that, well, that it was Snape," he divulged in a whisper and then added quickly, "I said _theory!"_

Sirius jumped up and started yelling something about greasy gits and people who couldn't get over grudges and how anyone could do something that cruel to his sweet, innocent godson with the big green eyes, making Harry wonder whether Sirius truly escaped Azkaban without being driven insane.

"Padfoot, why don't we let Harry finish the story," Remus interjected through Sirius' tirade. Sirius just turned his glare onto his best friend but Remus was unaffected and just smiled grimly as he added, "We can figure out what to do with Snape later."

Harry looked at his guardians apprehensively, peeking out from the top of the blankets that he had hidden under so as to muffle what they were saying. Hopefully when they found out that it was Quirrell they wouldn't go and murder Snape.

Sirius reached over and ruffled Harry's hair and said, "Well, what happened next? Please tell me somebody gave _him_ what he deserved," practically spitting out the word 'him'.

"Well, this is just what I've heard from Ron and Hermione," Harry began, neglecting to mention that he had missed it because he was trying to stay on his broom over a hundred feet off the ground. "Hermione said that she saw Snape muttering something and so _assumed,"_ he said, stressing the word assumed when it looked like Sirius was about to get up and start shouting again. He was already fingering his wand rather viciously.

"Anyway, she _assumed_ that Snape was jinxing the broom. So she went and sort of set Snape's robes on fire to break his eye contact," Harry finished, looking startled when Sirius hissed in triumph.

"Ha, take that Snivelly," Sirius muttered under his breath, "But it's not nearly enough for what you did to _my_ godson," he trailed off, muttering ominously.

"So you managed to get back onto your broom?" Remus asked, looking highly relieved when Harry nodded.

"But then I felt sick and I sort of coughed a few times and the snitch popped out of my mouth," Harry said, smiling as he remembered those care-free days. Looking back and removed from the situation, that had been a fantastic catch.

Sirius looked at his godson incredulously and said, "Wait, you caught the snitch in your _mouth?"_

"Well, I suppose I technically nearly swallowed it," Harry replied thoughtfully.

Sirius just laughed and gave Harry a spontaneous hug saying, "That has to be one of the strangest ends to a match in Quidditch history." _No thanks to that old moron,_ he added silently, not wanting to spoil Harry's obvious good mood. But un-hurt or not, Dumbledore and Snape were going to get it. _I wonder if we have any Howler paper?_

He was shaken out of his thoughts by Remus inquiring, "So, is that the end of the interesting parts for this year?"

"Of course it is, Moony!" Sirius exclaimed. "Just how many adventures do you think he can take?"

Remus laughed and acknowledged the point. "I suppose you're right."

Harry winced and sunk down into the couch a little. He wished he could let them continue to think that, but he had the feeling that it would be worse if they discovered the truth later and Harry didn’t feel particularly confident about being able to keep it secret from the people he lived with and the guardians who had access to all his friends and school and medical records. He opened his mouth and spoke hesitantly and quietly, "Well, actually, there's kind of more…"

Sirius and Remus stared at him and Sirius articulated in a deliberately calm voice, "What do you mean by _more?"_

"Um, that I'm not done yet," Harry told them, sinking down even lower.

"Come on, kiddo, it can't be that bad," Sirius assumed aloud, though he sounded doubtful. He reached out a hand and pulled Harry back up and readjusted the blanket making Harry roll his eyes.

"It's about that package and the giant three-headed dog, isn't it," Remus deduced suddenly.

Harry looked up at him in surprise but before he could say anything, Sirius' hands stilled and he pronounced, once more with forced calm, "Harry James Potter, do not tell me that you actually went near that dog again, and this time willingly?"

Harry winced again and said quickly, "Before I answer that, and before I continue the story, actually, you have to promise not to ground me for any longer!"

Sirius gave him a parental look (he may or may not have been practicing) and declared firmly, "I'm your godfather and legal guardian. I will decide if you will get grounded or not."

Harry didn't answer for a moment and considered the reactions thus far. He brightened as he thought of a way that he could get what he wanted. He turned to his godfather, who had sat back down on the couch next to Harry, and pouted and even managed to get some tears in his eyes.

Sirius' stern gaze lasted all of three seconds once he caught site of the look on Harry's face. He sighed and relented, "Alright, I promise not to ground for longer than a few weeks."

"Promise," Harry asked in a childish voice, rather amazed at the success of this trick. He would have to try it again sometime.

Sirius' heart softened even more at the sound and echoed: "Promise."

Harry brightened at once.

"Alright, so now that that's out of the way, shall we continue?" Remus asked, barely able to keep the laughter out of his voice. As tough as Sirius was against Dementors and Death Eaters, he absolutely crumbled at a single look from his godson. Remus shook his head, wondering what on earth was going to happen come Christmas and Harry's birthday.

"Right, next," Harry said, interrupting Remus' thoughts. "Oh, that's right. We were in Hagrid's hut and Hermione was telling me about what had happened." He looked at Sirius cautiously but Sirius didn't do anything, merely twitched and stroked his wand.

"But apparently Hagrid hadn't seen what had happened, because he didn't believe us," Harry revealed.

This made Sirius explode once more. "What do you mean, he didn't believe you?"

"Padfoot, sit down," Remus ordered. "At least let Harry finish the story."

Sirius obliged, grumbling almost inaudibly about Hagrid not believing his godson and his friends.

"Anyway," Harry continued over the sound of his godfathers voice, "We then mentioned that we had seen Snape go to the dog at Halloween - "

"Which just proves that Snivellus is a liar and should have been fired long ago," Sirius interjected.

"Padfoot," Remus groaned. Harry looked on at the interchange with slight amusement before deciding to continue before they got into a full-fledged argument.

"He asked us how we knew about Fluffy," he began but was soon interrupted again.

"Wait, what do you mean, Fluffy?" Sirius asked.

"That's the name of the dog," Harry answered simply. "Didn't I mention that?"

"No," responded Remus, weakly. "Really, I knew Hagrid had a fondness for rather vicious creatures but to name a giant, three-headed dog Fluffy? That's bordering on insanity."

"It's better than – no wait, never mind," Harry corrected quickly, realizing that some of Hagrid's other pets probably wouldn't be go over the best if they were mentioned right then.

"So Hagrid mentioned Fluffy," Sirius recounted, getting over his shock fast enough. After some of the other revelations from earlier on in the day, this one wasn't quite that bad.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said, getting drawn back into the story. "And he said that whatever it is that Fluffy's guarding is a matter between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel."

Sirius, who had snorted when Harry had mentioned 'Professor' Dumbledore, looked thoughtful at the name Flamel. "Nicholas Flamel, did you say? I've heard of him…"

"He was a famous alchemist," Remus recalled. "Died a few years ago though. I Don't know why or how given that it was fairly well known that he had the Philosopher's Stone."

"The stone that gives you immortality and everlasting gold?" Sirius clarified.

"That’s the one," Harry said, "'Course, we didn't know that at the time and spent weeks at the library trying to find him in some book or another."

"And you couldn't find him?" Remus asked, slightly surprised. Nicholas Flamel and his unique stone were hardly a secret in the wizarding world.

"Harry, that package wouldn't be the Philosopher's Stone, would it?" Sirius asked bluntly, putting the pieced together.

"Heh, maybe," Harry admitted. He amended his answer at the stern look he got from both of his guardians, "Alright, so it was but we didn't know that. At this point, the next important thing for us was Christmas."

A disappointed and wistful smile crossed Sirius' face at this. How he would have loved to be there for Harry on Christmas and be able to spoil him with presents. His resolve hardened: he would just make sure Harry had an absolute wonderful Christmas this year. Making a mental note to pursue that idea, he tuned back into the conversation to find that Harry was talking about when he and Ron had woken up on Christmas morning.

“So I got a sweater and fudge from Mrs Weasley," Harry was saying, "And some chocolate frogs from Hermione and a few other things.” He neglected to mention the gift he had gotten from the Dursley's.

"Then I got this surprise gift, it was really light and all silvery and Ron told me it was an Invisibility Cloak," Harry reported in a soft tone of voice. "The note said that it belonged to my father and for me to 'use it well'."

Sirius sent Remus a searching look but the werewolf just shook his head silently, eyebrow furrowed as he wondered who would have had James' old cloak. He knew Harry now had it but he hadn’t even thought about the particulars of how that had occurred.

"Christmas was fun," Harry continued, slightly more solemn now. "But it was that night that things started to pick up again." Sirius stopped looking wistful and returned to looking wary.

"I got out of bed and I sort of wanted to try out my dad's cloak so I snuck out," Harry admitted, looking slightly surprised that he did not get told off for this.

The truth was that Sirius knew where Harry was coming from and there was no way he'd tell him off for wanting to do something with the only connection he had with his father. He made a note to himself to find some more things from their old school days.

"Where did you go," Remus asked, almost gently.

"Hmm? Oh I went to the library," Harry quavered, clearing his throat quickly. "I thought I'd do some more digging on Flamel… in the restricted section.” Sirius’ eyebrow rose but he made no comment.

"But with my luck, I picked a book that screamed when I opened it," Harry said, rolling his eyes.

"Actually, Harry, all the Restricted Section Books scream when opened by someone without permission," Remus explained, lips twitching. "It's one of the enchantments on them."

Harry blushed, "I didn't know that."

"Obviously," Sirius laughed.

"Well, this time it really was my bad luck because Snape happened to be one of the teachers that came up to the library. The other one was Filch."

"Ouch, that really was bad luck," Sirius commented, wincing sympathetically.

"I got away and went into an empty classroom," Harry said, feeling a little nostalgic as he recalled what had happened next.

Sirius and Remus seemed to notice this as they did not prod him for details.

"I went in and just saw this mirror," he offered hesitantly after a few minutes. "It had this inscription on it – I can't remember it now, but I do remember feeling shocked when I looked into it and saw all these people around me in it."

Sirius and Remus exchanged an uneasy glance.

"It – it was my family," he recounted softly, "All of them. Even my parents." He could feel his eyes clouding with tears, especially now with the memory of their voices as they had been murdered ruthlessly ringing in his head.

Sirius went over to his godson and rubbed comforting circles on his back, silently giving his support as Remus held his hand and rubbed it with his thumb encouragingly.

After a few minutes, Harry began again with a slight sniffle, "I went down with Ron the next night and found out that he saw himself as Head Boy, Quidditch Captain and winning the House Cup for Gryffindor. Then I went alone again the next night, but I wasn't there very long when I saw Dumbledore. Or rather, he interrupted me. He told me that it was called the Mirror of Erised and that it was basically a mirror of Desire. It showed you the greatest desire of your heart."

"And yours was seeing your family," Remus finished quietly.

"Yeah," Harry sniffled with a slight smile.

"And Dumbledore then said that the mirror was going to be moved and that I 'shouldn't go looking for it again and not to dwell on what cannot be," Harry recited.

_Hah. Looks like that old coot can do something well,_ Sirius thought, actually a little surprised. It didn’t stop him from wishing that he had been there to offer his godson support.

"Well, I do hope that the next part is happier," Sirius prodded eventually.

"Yeah, well, sort of," Harry answered.

"Why, what happened?" Remus asked, now resigned that it would most likely turn out to be dangerous.

"Well, I suppose the first most important thing that happened was that we found out about Nicholas Flamel," Harry remembered.

"How?" Remus asked, not really needing the specifics but wanting to get Harry's mind off the Mirror of Erised.

"Malfoy hexed Neville and I gave him my chocolate frog and he gave me the card – which was Dumbledore's – and it said something about Dumbledore and Flamel pairing up about something," Harry railed off.

"That was a… coincidence," Sirius remarked, struggling to find the right word.

"Tell me about it," Harry agreed. "So we found out about the Philosophers Stone and then… do I have to go on?"

"Yes," his two guardians answered in unison.

"Well, we were doing homework in the library when we ran into Hagrid and found out that he was reading up on dragons," Harry revealed.

"Well, that’s nothing new, Hagrid's always reading up on them," Remus reasoned.

"Yeah, he did it all the time at school," Sirius added.

Harry sighed and clarified, "He was reading about dragon _care."_

Seeing that his guardian's weren't getting the hint he put it in simple terms even though he knew their reactions wouldn't be very good;

"We went down to Hagrid's hut where we found out that he had gotten a dragon's egg."

 


	5. Year One, Part Four

- **Last time on Reactions-**

_Seeing that his guardian's weren't getting the hint he put it in simple terms even though he knew their reactions wouldn't be very good;_

" _We went down to Hagrid's hut where we found out that he had gotten a dragon's egg."_

Harry braced himself for his guardian's reactions, knowing that it most definitely would not be good. He was proved correct when Sirius turned white as a sheet and then, only a few seconds later, bright red. Remus seemed to be stuck in 'white' mode.

"What. Do. You. Mean. By. A. Dragon." Sirius asked in a very tense and strict tone.

"Um, I mean, you know, a fire-breathing dragon," Harry said apprehensively, ducking under the blanket.

"And Hagrid got _rid_ of this dragon and you didn't go near it until he did, right," Sirius said through gritted teeth.

Remus nodded in agreement, his knuckled white from where his hands were gripping the couch tightly.

Harry winced and murmured the answer under his breath. Of course, considering that he had murmured whilst hidden deep under a blanket, neither of them heard him.

Sirius blew out a breath, making a whistling noise and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. He didn't want to terrify his godson, after all. He took several deep breaths and kneeled down in front of the couch and pulled the blanket back to look into his godsons bright green apprehensive eyes.

"Harry," he said in a would-be calm voice, "What did you do?" He sounded almost resigned to the fact that it would most likely be dangerous and he would not like it at all.

"You're gonna have to sit down it you want to hear it," Harry pointed out, looking worriedly between his two guardians.

Remus closed his eyes, trying to collect himself while Sirius was rearranging Harry's blanket again to either try and keep his hands busy or stall for more time before he had to hear about any more danger – Remus couldn't figure out which one.

Sirius finally sat back and Harry thought it would be wise not to mention that the blankets were a little too tight. Anything to keep him on his broom this summer. Though, if he was right about that eye trick (he thought he'd once heard it referred to as the 'puppy-dog eyes' by Ginny) then maybe he would be able to convince Sirius to let him go up anyway… It had potential.

But at the moment, there was a very overprotective godfather and an equally overprotective surrogate uncle waiting for an answer. Harry took a deep breath in preparation for this answer and said hesitantly, "Well, see, we obviously knew that we had to get rid of it somehow."

"Well, that's good at least," said Sirius, sounding relieved.

"Yes, it is glad to know that _some_ of Lily's genetics are in there somewhere," Remus said, also sounding very relieved.

Harry grinned uneasily. "Yeah… um, well Hagrid kinda didn't want to get rid of it so we had to convince him – which wasn't easy!"

"You did convince him though," Sirius said questioningly, continuing in a warning voice when he saw Harry's nod, "And just what did you do to get rid of the dragon."

"Norbert," Harry offered in a helpful voice.

"What?" Sirius asked, now looking bewildered.

"The dragon's name was Norbert," Harry explained, glad to see that his distraction worked. Now they wouldn't get as mad. Or, at least, they had forgotten some of the anger that they had accumulated so far.

"Norbert," said Sirius under his breath. "Norbert. I really can't believe Hagrid."

"Just what type of a dragon was, er, Norbert," Remus asked suspiciously. Harry's first year was not nearly so safe as he thought, or perhaps thought would be a better word to use, he mused. He knew the Headmaster had evaded his question when he had asked about them when he saw him the summer before he taught at Hogwarts. He really should have pursued that train of thought – after all, there had to be some sort of story behind the fact that one Defence teacher was dead and the other was in a permanent ward at St Mungos. Unfortunately, he had been too shaken with Sirius' breakout to be thinking straight and had let the Headmaster go.

Harry scowled, Remus was far too perceptive. After he had managed to get them unsettled to. "He was a Norwegian Ridgeback," Harry said lightly.

"A Norwegian Ridgeback," Sirius stated with deadly calm. "As in the dragon that is on the top five 'Most dangerous creatures list'?"

"Really," said Harry, actually sounding interested, "I didn't know that."

"No, but I'm sure Hagrid did," Remus interjected wryly. Harry had to nod in agreement. That was probably why Hagrid had loved it so much – also that it was rare, of course.

"Alright, back to the point," Sirius said, eyes closed as he tried to will patience into himself. It would not do if he went and killed the entire Hogwarts staff on a rampage.

"Right," said Harry, "Well, I remembered that Ron's brother, Charlie, works with dragons so we figured we'd send Hedwig with a letter to ask him to take Norbert to Romania."

"That was a good idea," Sirius beamed, both surprised and thrilled that Harry had managed to solve this problem without any dangerous stunts. Harry looked a little unsettled at how happy his godfather looked.

"Anyway, we got an answer back and he said he'd send his friends to meet us at the highest room in the Astronomy tower at midnight," Harry relayed the letter they had received. "Unfortunately, Malfoy managed to get a hold of it."

"How on earth did that happen," Remus asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry shrugged dismissively, not wanting to get into the whole story about him threatening Ron and everything. He hated Draco with a passion, but that didn't mean he wanted him to be targeted by his guardians. Snape was a grown man and could defend himself. Draco could not.

"Unfortunately, Ron was in the hospital wing so it was just Hermione and I that went," Harry continued, making it quite obvious to his two guardians that he was avoiding the question. The two former pranksters (but would be again, with the number of idiots that their charge had gotten involved with) exchanged a suspicious glance but decided to leave it at that.

But, Remus had to ask, "Why was Ron in the hospital wing?"

"Some reason," Harry said, shrugging once more.

Remus held Harry's gaze for a moment but then broke away, resolving to find out later. At the moment, he had to pay attention to Harry's story.

"What about Draco?" Sirius asked impatiently.

"I'm getting there," Harry complained, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, so Hermione and I snuck out of bed, down to Hagrid's hut and got Norbert. Hagrid was teary-eyed about having to send his 'baby Norbert away'."

Sirius snorted. He had absolutely no sympathy for Hagrid at that moment. And he wouldn't even think about it until that damn dragon was far, far away from his godson.

"And that's where we saw Malfoy," Harry continued, "He obviously hadn't gone to a teacher, but had instead tried to catch us in the act. Unfortunately for him, he got caught by McGonagall and, since we were under the Invisibility Cloak, she didn't believe a word of what he was saying about us and gave him detention." Harry actually looked gleeful as he said this, as did Sirius when he heard it. Remus just looked satisfied.

"So you got rid of the dragon," Sirius prompted hopefully, half expecting something horrible to happen.

"Yep," Harry nodded. But then his face fell, "Except that we were so happy to be rid of Norbert that we had, of course, completely forgotten about the Invisibility Cloak."

Sirius instantly paled and said, "You got caught?" The punishment for sneaking illegal animals was extremely severe.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, wincing even as he remembered the memory. "By Filch, and then he took us to McGonagall. She was absolutely furious."

Remus and Sirius were both looking sympathetic. Remus asked, "What punishment did you get?"

"Well, first I should say that Neville was caught out of bed as well," Harry said dully.

"Neville," said Remus, eyebrow shooting up in surprise. "No way… I would never have expected that of Neville of all people."

"I know," Harry sighed, "Apparently he heard Malfoy talking and went to warn us. Luckily McGonagall thought it was a joke. She gave us a bloody – "

"Harry," Sirius reprimanded.

"Sorry," said Harry, then continued, "She gave us a huge lecture then took off fifty points and gave us detention."

"Well, fifty points isn't too bad," Sirius reasoned.

"Um, I mean fifty points _each,"_ Harry said, "Meaning 150 in total."

"150 points?" Sirius said in shock. "But it was your first time!"

Harry shrugged. It didn't really bother him much anymore. Sirius scowled, mentally adding McGonagall to the ever-growing list in his mind. He would have a few _words_ with her.

"So, what happened next," Remus said, hoping that they were near the end. His heart really couldn't take much more pressure, and he really didn't want to go to St Mungos.

"Well, we figured out that Voldemort was after the Stone," Harry said, after thinking a moment. The detention wasn't _really_ necessary to the story so he could bypass that part, knowing without a doubt that both Sirius and Remus would go nuts if they found that his first detention was in the Forbidden Forest, never mind the fact that he had actually come face-to-face with Voldemort there!

Remus looked slightly suspicious, the jump seeming a little unnatural to him, but he let it go. The majority of this year was unnatural anyway.

"And you went to Dumbledore with this information, _yes,"_ Sirius said, and by the tone of his voice, Harry could tell that he would so get grounded for longer if he said no. Luckily, this was one of the few (actually, more like the only) times that he could appease his godfather. At least, slightly.

"We did try, I swear," Harry exclaimed. "Well, at first we didn't think it was worth bothering about," he amended slightly, but jumped into continuing when he noticed the look on Sirius' face. "But then, after exams, I realized that the way that Hagrid had gotten the dragon egg was suspicious, after all, who carries an illegal dragon egg in their pocket?"

"Hagrid," Sirius snorted, still none to happy about this fact, even if nothing really bad had come out of it.

Remus, on the other hand, looked thoughtful and said, "I see your point. Continue."

Harry obeyed and said, "Well, we all went up to Hagrid and asked him about the man that had given him the dragon egg. He let slip that he had accidently told the man how to get past Fluffy, because the man had asked him if he could handle a dangerous creature like the dragon."

Sirius' eyes widened in surprise and he exchanged a panicked look with Remus.

Harry rushed to reassure them, "That was when we decided to go to Dumbledore." His guardians looked far more relieved but Harry's face had dropped and he added, "Except that we had found out that he wasn't there."

"What the hell do you mean he wasn't there?" Sirius shouted with narrowed eyes. "He's the headmaster, he's supposed to be there all the time!"

"Well, he wasn't," Harry told his godfather, glad to have escaped being grounded for longer. "Apparently he was at the Ministry or something for 'business'. We tried telling McGonagall, but she didn't believe us."

"What do you mean she didn't believe you?" Sirius asked, eyes narrowed once more.

"Erm, exactly that," Harry answered, slightly uneasy.

Sirius muttered curse words under his breath as Minerva was officially 'Black-listed'. Or, in other words, added to his list of people to have _words_ with when this was over.

"Harry James Potter," Remus said firmly, surprising Harry slightly, for Remus hadn't used Harry's full name yet. He guessed that this was not a good sign. "Please tell me that you did _not_ go to get the stone yourself."

Sirius whipped his head around to look at Harry with piercing eyes, making the boy squirm uncomfortably. He answered the question, weighing his words carefully but knowing he would not completely get away with this one.

"No, we didn't go to get the stone ourselves. We went to stop Voldemort from getting it," Harry said, in a false optimistic voice.

His guardians faces, which had lit up when he had said the first sentence, automatically deflated and paled.

"Harry," Sirius said warningly, but stopped before saying anything else, deciding to wait until Harry had finished. Then he would never let the boy out of his sight again.

"What exactly did you do?" Remus asked, faltering slightly. Fluffy and the Philosophers Stone was one thing, but Voldemort himself?

"We snuck down after hours," Harry said with a deep breath, wanting to just get it over and done with. "Neville was there, and he tried to stop, but Hermione hexed him. She felt really bad about it, but we had to."

Remus and Sirius nodded silently, urging Harry to continue.

"When we got down to the corridor we saw the door was already open and that there was a harp there so we figured someone had already gone down," Harry explained.

There was a growl that sounded suspiciously like 'Snape' that issued from Sirius but other then that, there was complete silence in the room.

"We opened the trapdoor and jumped down, landing on Devils Snare."

Sirius gasped audibly and grabbed Harry's arm, holding onto it tightly. Remus was sitting up straighter as he stared straight at Harry.

"Hermione managed to get rid of it," Harry assured them, "Well, after she was reminded that she was a witch, that is," he amended with a laugh. Neither of his guardians laughed.

"Right," said Harry, "The next 'trial', I suppose you can call them, was Flitwick's. It was a locked door that could only be opened with the direct key. And there were about a two hundred keys flying around the room that could have been used."

"What do you mean, flying around?" Remus asked, speaking for the first time since Harry had talked about going through the trapdoor.

"Exactly that – they had wings," Harry explained. "Ron told me what sort of key we were looking for, and I managed to find it and catch it. We were through that trial."

Sirius looked torn between being proud and praising Harry for his brilliant Seeker ability or scolding him for using it to get himself into danger. He settled for not commenting, but ruffled his godsons hair with one hand. The other hand was still tightly holding onto Harry.

"The next trial was McGonagalls," Harry said. "It was a giant chess set and we realized – or rather, Ron realized, that we had to play our way across."

"I'm assuming that Ron did most of the work with that," Remus said, remembering how many times he had seen Harry and Ron playing chess all over the place. There had only ever been one person winning all of those matches, and he had heard stories about rooms emptying when Ron came in them with a chessboard.

"Yeah," said Harry, looking more subdued now, "But he had to sacrifice himself to the Queen so that I could checkmate the King."

Sirius ruffled Harry's hair again and asked in a quiet voice, almost dreading the answer, "What was next?"

"Next was Snapes," said Harry, "Well, I suppose it was technically Quirrell's, but it was a troll and it had already been knocked out by the person in front of us."

Remus was looking thoughtful at the mention of Quirrell's trial being a troll. Could it be… he was shaken out of his thoughts by Harry's voice continuing.

"Anyway, Snapes. It was a logic puzzle with potions, but Hermione managed to solve it in, like, two minutes. The only problem was that there was only enough for one of us to go forward…" Harry trailed off.

"Harry, please tell me you didn't," Sirius practically begged.

"You did," Remus said quietly, closing his eyes, trying to fight the overprotective urges that were telling him to go and kill Dumbledore now.

Harry nodded mutely, not saying anything when Sirius' grip on his hand tightened considerably.

"Yeah, I did… and I found out that Quirrell was working for Voldemort," said Harry, slightly bitterly.

Sirius stilled in surprise and Remus looked slightly shocked as well. "Quirrell…" Sirius whispered weakly. "Was he the one who…" he asked, directing his question to his godson. Harry nodded, assuming (correctly) that Sirius was talking about the Quidditch fiasco.

"And what happened with… Quirrell," asked Remus, his voice sounding forced.

"He tied me up, admitting that he wanted the stone, and that yes, Snape did hate me, but didn't want me dead and was in fact trying to save me," Harry said flatly, trying to repress the memories, which still seemed vivid despite them being so long ago.

The look of surprise on Sirius' face would have been comical is the situation had not been so serious. To think that he owed Harry's life to him… Sirius nearly shuddered at the thought. However, he quickly returned his attention to his godson.

"He then tried to get me to get the stone – which, it turned out, was apparently hidden in the Mirror of Erised," Harry revealed, managing a small smile at the looks of shock on his guardians faces.

Sirius got over his shock quickly enough, rubbing his thumb on Harry's hand soothingly to urge him on.

"But when I looked into the mirror, I somehow got the stone," Harry explained, and, noticing the looks on Sirius' and Remus' faces, decided to elaborate. "Dumbledore later told me that people who wanted only to _get_ the stone but not _use_ would be able to get it but those who wanted to use it, couldn't get it."

Sirius still looked slightly confused, but nodded for Harry to continue.

"I obviously lied to Quirrell, but then I found out that well, that Voldemort had possessed Quirrell and his face was sticking out the back of Quirrells head," Harry said in a rush, looking at his guardians apprehensively.

Sirius' jaw was dropping open was dropping open while Remus was counting to ten, one hand on his heart.

"And what happened then," Sirius said, choking slightly as he thought of his poor, innocent godson at age eleven – not even a teenager – facing the most powerful dark wizard in history.

"He tried to kill me," Harry said simply, wincing slightly at how tight Sirius' grip had gotten, though he did not complain.

"Don't worry," Harry said, making both of his guardians snort in disbelief. "Dumbledore got there in the end."

"Yeah, in the end," Sirius said bitterly, managing to mask his fury at the Headmaster quite well, in his own opinion.

"How long were you out for?" Remus asked, sounding terribly strained, his hand still on his heart.

"Three days," Harry answered but, at seeing the worried looks, added hastily "But I was fine when I woke up, I swear!"

"Is that all?" Remus asked, desperately hoping that the answer was 'yes'.

"Well," said Harry, cocking his head to the side thoughtfully, "Dumbledore told me why Snape and Dad hated each other, why I could get the stone, that he sent me the Invisibility Cloak – "

At those words, Sirius' eyes narrowed and his fury at the Headmaster mounted even more.

"And Ron, Hermione, Neville and I won 170 points, winning us the House Cup," Harry completed.

"And… that was my first year," he finished, somewhat lamely.

Remus was fervently glad that this was the end. His heart really could not stand any more shock. Sirius reached forward and grabbed Harry into a bear-hug, saying over and over again that Harry was safe now, that Harry was grounded, and that Dumbledore was going to get it.

Harry didn't bother trying to get out of the hug. He stayed there, knowing intuitively that Sirius needed the reassurance. But it really was getting to be quite long…

In fact, it was at least ten minutes before a bell rang, signaling that someone was coming through the floo, and it was only then that Sirius let Harry go.

Harry looked up to see his best friend coming through the fireplace and said with genuine happiness, "Ron!"

"Hey, mate," Ron answered happily, stepping into the living room completely. He frowned suddenly and asked in a puzzled tone, "Oi, mate, why are you covered in a blanket?"

Harry pointed inconspicuously at Sirius and Ron nodded in understanding. "So what are you lot doing?" he asked, honestly curious when he saw Remus pale as a sheet and Sirius mad about something.

"Harry was telling us about his first year," Sirius answered, with a grin that was obviously forced.

"Ah," said Ron, nodding in understanding.

"Actually, that reminds me," Remus interrupted curiously, "Ron, why were you at the hospital wing?"

Harry cursed silently to himself as Ron answered. He _knew_ he should have just told them! Now they were going to furious. He frowned and then thought of something. "Hey, Sirius," he whispered to his godfather.

"Yeah," Sirius whispered back, turning to face his godson, who was getting off the couch.

"I feel like I'm about to dehydrate. Can I go get some water?" Harry asked, opening his eyes wide and pouting for good measure.

Once more, Sirius absolutely melted at the look and agreed automatically.

"Thanks!" Harry said, walking sedately out of the room and then running straight to his own room.

Meanwhile, Sirius tuned back into the conversation.

"…It was that bloody dragon," Ron was saying in a complaining voice. "Nearly bit my hand off! It was why I didn't go to the Forbidden Forest."

"Wait, what about the Forbidden Forest?" Sirius asked sharply, turning to Ron and staring at him. Remus sat up a lot straighter in his own chair.

"You know, that detention that Harry and Hermione got for being out of bounds after curfew?" Ron asked, "The one where Harry saw Voldemort drinking Unicorns blood?"

The blood drained from Sirius' face and his eyes narrowed. There was a distinct _thud_ as Remus fell to the floor in a dead faint.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!"

 


	6. Year Two, Part One

Harry James Potter sighed. Today had started out as such a good day too, he thought ruefully. It had started out perfectly, actually. And then he had to blurt out about that stupid broom.

"Are you even listening to me?" A voice cut into his thoughts. Harry looked up to see his godfather looking at him, having stopped his pacing.

In the background, Harry could hear Remus moving around the kitchen, muttering, "Potions… fools… heart… cotton wool…"

Harry suppressed another sigh as he answered 'yes' to his godfathers question. Sirius didn't respond and, when Harry looked up at him once more, he noticed that Sirius was looking at him from where he was standing, nearly right in front of him.

"I don't think you are," Sirius said evenly, after several long moments of nothing but Remus' mutterings about locking Harry in a tall tower to keep him safe.

Sirius suppressed a sigh as he crouched down to be eye-level with his godson. Already taller when they were both standing, since Harry was considerably small for his age, Harry didn't have a chance when he was sitting down. Harry looked slightly surprised at this, expecting to see Sirius start pacing and ranting about telling the truth again. Which was exactly what he had been doing ever since Ron had left… over an hour ago.

"Harry, I don't want you to lie to me, alright," he said, staring at Harry intensely. "I want to be able to trust you."

"Fine," said Harry, crossing his fingers.

Sirius rose an eyebrow and brought Harry's hands together. He uncrossed them and then held them so they were clasped between both of his larger ones. "You wanna try that again?"

Harry blew out a breath and said reluctantly, "Alright, I won't lie."

"Or hold back information," Sirius added firmly, looking his godson in the eyes.

Harry looked at Sirius, exasperated. How did he do that?

"Harry," Sirius said, a warning in his voice.

"Fine," said Harry, even more reluctantly. "I promise not to withhold information either."

"Good boy," said Sirius, standing up and ruffling Harry's hair. "And you can think about that as you spend the next fortnight going to bed at eight thirty."

"What!" Harry exclaimed.

"You didn't think I was going to let you get away with it, did you?" Sirius asked, eyebrows raised. He was also marveling at himself, having never thought himself to be someone to ground kids or even do any of that responsible stuff. But with Harry, it just seemed natural. Which, though Harry probably didn't agree, was a good thing for him.

"Eat all of it, Harry," Remus said, when Harry had pushed away his half-eaten plate. "You're far too thin."

Harry rolled his eyes as he pulled the plate back towards him. Remus never let him leave food on his plate, because he insisted that Harry needed to gain weight. He couldn't help but groan when he realized that it would probably be worse when Remus found out about the starvation. Which, he realized with dread, was next.

After all three had finished, Sirius suggested that they move to the dining room so Harry could begin his second year. Harry tried to delay, but Sirius just gave him a _look_ which quietened him immediately.

"So, should we start Harry's second year, then?" Remus asked lightly. He was hoping that this year would be far quieter and wouldn't include as many… shocks as the previous one had.

Wishful Thinking.

"Without leaving anything out," Sirius said pointedly, settling right next his godson on the couch while Remus sat down opposite them on a soft chair that he had levitated there. After making sure Harry was settled in, causing his godson to roll his eyes as he was covered in the blanket once more, Sirius nodded for Harry to continue.

"Well, I don't really know where to start," Harry said, stalling slightly. It wasn't that he didn't know how to start. It was more that he didn't want to start. For goodness sakes, he was already grounded and had an eight-thirty curfew for the next two weeks, who knew what would happen when they found out about the stunts he and Ron had pulled that year?

"What happened when you returned to your… _relatives_ is probably a good place to start," Remus pointed out reasonably, slowly returning to normal after his near heart-attack of before. However, the way he said 'relatives' proved that he was still dead-set on revenge for those who hurt his cub.

Harry winced as he thought about it, making Sirius tense in worry about what could have happened. He hardly noticed that his hands were wringing the blanket that was currently covering his godson as he stared at his little, innocent Pronglet, who was even more innocent back those few years ago and narrowed his eyes at what to do to those idiots that dared say they were related to his precious Pronglet.

"I suppose it didn't start out too bad," Harry started hesitantly. But he figured that if he had to reveal everything, it was better to get it over with. Gather that famous Gryffindor courage of his. _The question is,_ Harry found himself thinking, _is where the hell did it go?"_

"But it got worse," Remus said calmly, the voice of reason once more. _Those potions really do help. I wonder if it would be legal to give Sirius the amount of doses he would need to calm down?_

"Well, a little bit," Harry admitted. "I suppose it started on my birthday. Uncle Vernon had an important client, so I had to help clean and everything, and, of course, I couldn't bother them while he was over." He was making it seem lighter again.

Sirius once again made a note to spoil Harry on July thirty-first. Maybe he could… experiment on Snape for the entertainment, he mused. Now _that_ was an idea. Or he could turn Dumbledore into a unicorn so they could play pin-the-tail-on-the-unicorn.

"Uh, Sirius?" asked Harry, looking at him, half-hoping that this would give him an opportunity to get away.

"Oh, sorry kiddo, just got carried away thinking about something," Sirius said, smiling cheerfully. "Keep going."

"Right," said Harry, deciding it would be better to just not ask. "So I went up to my room, planning to have a quiet night for my birthday, but then when I got in there, I found a house-elf!"

"A house-elf?" Remus asked incredulously. "What on earth would a house-elf be doing in a muggle home?"

"I didn't even know it was a house-elf at the time," Harry said, snorting. "Then it just started saying something about how I was so noble to have defeated 'He-Who-Must-Not- Be-Named and whatnot."

"Yes, but a house-elf can't just pop in there for no reason," Sirius said. "It has to have orders from his master."

"Unless it doesn't want to listen to those orders," Remus countered thoughtfully. "The thing is, most house-elves would always do what their masters tell them, until the moment that they die. But then you get the rare ones that rebel. I'm guessing that this is the one that went to see Harry," he said, posing it more as a question then as a statement.

"Yeah, except I didn't know it at the time," Harry said, "In fact, Dobby was the one that explained the whole house-elves slave thing."

"Dobby?" asked Sirius with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, that was his name," Harry said in a tone that said it should have been obvious.

"I see," Sirius said slowly. "Well, what else did Dobby say?"

"Er, well, he said that I would be in danger if I went back to Hogwarts," Harry admitted.

"Why?" Sirius asked sharply. He was going into Overprotective Padfoot again, Harry noted with an inward sigh.

"He wouldn't say," Harry said, now complaining, "He just kept on saying that I shouldn't return to Hogwarts but wouldn't tell me _why._ It was downright annoying."

"He didn't give you any hints?" Remus asked curiously.

Harry shook his head and answered, "Just that 'terrible things would happen'. And then he revealed that he'd been taking my letters!" Harry continued, now sounding indignant.

"He'd been hiding your letters?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," Harry sighed, "Made my summer downright miserable."

"So what did you answer to Dobby's insistences that you not go back to Hogwarts?" Remus asked, smirking as he realized that Sirius and Dobby would probably be very similar in what they would be saying about Hogwarts when Sirius got going later this summer…

"I couldn't say that I wouldn't go back," Harry said. "Hogwarts is home. I'd go insane with the Dursleys. Seriously, they should make it a punishment instead of sending people to Azkaban."

"And was that that?" Sirius asked, somehow knowing that it would not be that simple.

"No," Harry snorted, "Dobby doesn't take no for an answer."

"Sounds like someone else I know," Remus murmured under his breath, seeing an image of Sirius insisting that it was too dangerous for Harry to return to Hogwarts. An image that Remus knew he was going to be seeing within the next month.

"What do you mean?" asked Sirius, completely clueless of the things going through his best friends head.

"Nothing," Remus replied hastily. He turned to Harry before Sirius could pursue his suspicions and asked, "So, what did he do to try and make sure you didn't go back?"

"He went down and crashed my Aunt Petunia's cake on the guests heads," Harry said lightly, blinking in shock when Padfoot started to laugh.

"Serves them right," Sirius crowed triumphantly.

Remus nodded, also pleased. But he couldn't help but notice that Harry was rather quiet. It might just be a teenage 'sullen fit' from the lecture and punishment from earlier – which, really he had lucked out with. Lily would have been far worse, although, Remus mused, none of this would have happened if Lily had been alive because she would have set the Headmasters beard on fire for even thinking about doing that to her little one.

And James… well, Remus didn't even want to imagine what James would have done if he had been alive. He was always overprotective, though not nearly as much as Sirius currently was, he added wryly. But no, Dumbledore wouldn't have dared let anything happen to Harry if Lily and James had been alive.

"Well, I suppose the image was sort of funny," Harry said hesitantly, "Though not nearly as much as my cousin in his school uniform."

"And what ended up so bad about it?" Remus asked, shaking the image of Dumbledore locked in a broom closet without a wand by an irate James from his head. _That does have potential, though. I should tell Padfoot._

"Because Dobby used magic for it," Harry said plainly.

"Of course he did, he's a magical creature," Sirius said, no longer laughing, though his eyes still had a humourous twinkle in them. Harry wished that would stay there but for some strange reason… he really doubted it would. _I wonder why,_ Harry found himself thinking sarcastically.

"Yes, but I lived in a muggle house," Harry reminded Sirius with a sigh.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Sirius asked. "Besides the fact that you weren't meant to be there, of course," he added under his breath.

"The Ministry thought _I_ had done that magic," Harry explained patiently, more then happy to postpone having to tell them about his punishment from that particular incident.

"What!" Sirius said through gritted teeth, quite differently then his customary bellow.

"They blamed you for it?" Remus asked tightly, anger rising at the unjust ministry once more.

"Er, maybe," Harry said with a brilliant smile.

"Harry, do you really want to get grounded for the rest of summer?" Sirius asked with eyes narrowed.

Harry narrowed his eyes right back and answered, "Alright, yes they bloody blamed me for it."

"Language, Harry," Remus reprimanded at the same time as Sirius said, "Bloody idiots!"

Remus groaned and shook his head. He really couldn't take much more of this, and Harry had barely even started his first year.

Harry, on the other hand, was getting slightly annoyed at getting grounded. Sure, he may be able to convince Sirius to let him fly and everything with those doggy eyes or whatever they were, but he was fifteen, he didn't have to go to bed that bloody early just because he had tried to stop his guardians from having heart attacks. Harry studiously ignored the fact that he had really only ignored that so that they wouldn't become even more protective of him. _I wonder if Fred and George have invented anything new…_

Harry smiled at the image of his godfather being chased around by one of the twins fake wands.

"And what did the ministry say?" said godfather cut through his thoughts.

"It was just a warning… but it had other repercussions," Harry said, now divulging information reluctantly.

"What sort of repercussions?" Sirius asked softly, seeing that Harry really didn't want to say. Damn Dursleys, making Harry so shy and subdued.

"Well, I hadn't told them that I wasn't allowed to do magic outside of school," Harry explained, realizing he hadn't mentioned this before now.

"A good idea," Remus said.

"Yeah, and it was really funny, I could make Dudley panic by just saying some nonsense words and the Dursleys were terrified of me," Harry said, now sounding happy as he remembered the look on Dudleys face. He didn't know it, but he had The Glint in his eyes. Remus found himself wondering where the innocent child had gone.

Sirius ignored The Glint – something he would later regret – but laughed at the image of Harry scaring his cousin by saying some nonsense.

"Glad to know at least part of that stay was fun," Sirius said brightly, "But what about that letter…" His voice trailed off as he realized what must have happened.

Harry nodded gloomily, "Yeah, they found out from the letter. Uncle Vernon wasn't too happy."

"What did he do?" Remus asked carefully, one hand stilling on a potion placed on the table next to him.

Harry winced and looked down.

"C'mon, kiddo," Sirius coaxed. "What did he do?"

"He and Aunt Petunia didn't want me going back to Hogwarts," Harry admitted.

"And what did he do to try and stop you?" Remus asked, gold beginning to show in his eyes.

"They locked me in my room," Harry said casually. "They figured that if I couldn't send letters or use magic without getting expelled then by locking me in I wouldn't be able to go back to Hogwarts."

"Those…" Sirius burst out, unable to think of words good enough to describe the _animals._ He couldn't believe that sweet, kind Lily could be related to a woman like Petunia.

"What else did they do," Remus asked, seeing from Harry's demeanour that there was more. He was now holding onto the potions vial.

"They didn't exactly give me a lot of food," Harry said carefully, trying to word it in a way other then 'starved'. It didn't seem to work very well though.

Remus grabbed the potion and sculled it in one gulp while there seemed to be a vein popping in Sirius' head. Harry was actually rather fascinated by it… was that normal?

Sirius was actually speechless. They had starved his godson. They had _starved_ his godson. No wonder Harry never ate, he was probably to scared to thanks to the idiots that took away his childhood, innocence…

Harry was staring at Sirius in concern, not even noticing when Remus slipped out. His godfather was pacing and muttering something.

Then something was pushed into his hands and looked up, startled, to see Remus above him and pushing a huge plate full of food into his hands with a look that quite clearly said, 'eat it!'

Sirius nodded approvingly and said in a would-be calm voice, "Excuse me for a moment."

He walked out of the room sedately and Harry felt slightly awkward at all the banging, crashing and cursing he heard from the other room… for the next half an hour.

 


	7. Year Two, Part Two

- _Last time on Reactions-_

_Sirius walked out of the room sedately and Harry felt slightly awkward at all the banging, crashing and cursing he heard from the other room… for the next half an hour._

_-The Second Part of the Second Year of Reactions-_

Harry moodily poked at his food with a fork, under the watchful eyes of his two _wonderful_ guardians, Remus and Sirius. Sirius had finally returned to the room after venting his anger, a rather manic gleam in his eye and a piece of parchment and self-inking quill in hand as he scribbled on the parchment. Harry didn't even want to know what was on that parchment.

_Probably ways to turn Dumbledore into a goat_ , Harry thought randomly, not realizing that this was, in fact, one of the many options on the parchment.

"Why don't we continue the story," Harry said hopefully. He really didn't want to eat anymore and got the feeling that he was soon going to be force-fed, particularly if they talked to Madam Pomfrey or Mrs Weasley who he knew were constantly talking about how underweight, thin, and malnourished he was. _Note to self; Do not leave Sirius or Remus alone with Mrs Weasley. Ever._

Remus eyed the food left on the plate appraisingly, still not fully pleased with the amount that Harry had eaten. However, he did want to hear the rest of the story and so nodded silently. He flicked his wand at the plate as he once more sat down on the sofa in front of the couch.

Sirius finished a sentence on his parchment and put it into the drawer and locked it – it wouldn't do for his innocent little Pronglet to see it – and then sat down on the couch, putting an arm around his godson and putting his feet on the table in front of him.

It was a mark of how preoccupied Remus was that he didn't tell Sirius off for it.

After a few moments of silence, Sirius prompted his godson with a "So…"

Harry blinked and said, "Right, sorry." He didn't sound it all.

"Anyway, I was stuck in my room for a few days," he said, not quite as lightly as he had previously, as now all the memories had been dug up. Sirius tightened his arm around Harry comfortingly.

"Then, on the third day, I thought I was hallucinating," Harry said, lightly once more. "I woke up to see Ron, Fred and George hanging out my window!"

"Er, just how were they managing that?" Remus asked, looking startled and almost cautious as he braced himself. After having confiscated a Dung Bomb, a Doxy, a fire-cracker, gum, and Exploding Noisecrackers all on the first class that he had had the twins, he had come to expect that the Weasley twins had many, many tricks up their sleeves.

"They were in a flying car," Harry said, remembering the memory with quite a lot of detail considering it had been so long ago.

"So, you got in with your trunk and flew away with them, right?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Not quite," Harry admitted. "For one thing, there were the bars on the window – '

"What bars?" Sirius nearly yelled, making Harry, who happened to be right next to him, wince slightly from the noise.

"Didn't I mention those?" Harry asked, slightly guardedly.

"No," Remus said with forced calm, in between taking large gulps of the strange potion next to him.

"Oh, well there were bars on the window – oh, and there was a cat flap as well, that was so they could give me food," Harry added, having forgotten this small fact in the grand scheme of things. After all, having had barely any food for quite a while – even before he had been locked up the portions had been meager – he hadn't been feeling well at all and it was no surprise that his memory was slightly fuzzy.

Sirius was practically hyperventilating by now and ranting under his breath, "He _abused_ my godson. Bloody child abuser. My little, innocent Pronglet…"

_Sirius is definitely not sane,_ Harry decided with a raised eyebrow. _Oh well, I have one sane guardian, that's enough. But then again…_

Harry turned to Remus and saw that his former Defense Professor was eyeing the potion he now held in his hand contemplatively. However his thoughts were cut off by a huge bear hug from said insane godfather.

_Should I give some to Sirius?_ Remus wondered, turning the potion over several times in his hand. There was no denying that Sirius could use it, preferably before he managed to smother Harry with his hugs. _But,_ Remus decided, now clutching the bottle protectively to his chest, _I need it more._

"S'rus, m'fine now," came Harry's muffled voice.

Sirius didn't answer, but loosened his grip on his godson slightly. _You may be fine, but the Little Pronglet Abusers won't be,_ was the vindictive thought going through his head as he smoothed down Harry's hair, something he had taken to doing when Harry had nightmares.

"Alright, Harry, why don't you continue," Remus said, gentle and calm once more but with a raging fire in his eyes. He wanted to hear that Harry had gotten away with the Weasley's, had a wonderful summer and got his revenge on the Precious Cub Abusers.

Sirius nodded in agreement and finally let go of Harry, though not completely. He leant back on the couch and put his arm around his godsons shoulders.

"Right, well… where was I?" Harry wondered out loud.

"Oh, that's right," Harry said hastily, so as to make sure that Sirius and Remus didn't go on more tangents about abusers. "Fred, George, Ron, and the flying car. Well, Fred and George managed to get rid of the bars and then they snuck inside and picked all the locks to get my trunk and everything."

"I knew I liked those twins," said Sirius in a satisfied tone of voice.

Remus nodded in agreement, although they played (or, more specifically, _attempted_ to play) many pranks during his years of teaching, he had taken an immediate liking to him. Perhaps because they represented the marauders in a way, constantly trying to cheer people up with pranks and laughter, and closer then close. But also without the betrayal that ended up ruining the marauders friendships. After all, if you couldn't trust your twin, who could you trust?

Harry snorted and replied, "I'm not surprised you do, after all, they are known as the second generation of marauders."

"Yes, Minerva mentioned that several times," Remus said, rather wistfully. He still missed teaching.

"So, the twins – and Ron, of course – got you away safely?" Sirius prompted, making a mental note to thank them profusely when he saw them again.

"Sort of," said Harry slowly, trying to recall all the images of that day. Really only three things seriously stood out from that day; the huge headache he had had from lack of nutrients, Ron's face in between the bars and his relatives faces as he flew away.

"Oh, that's right, after the twins got my trunk and everything and we were nearly ready to go, Hedwig screeched and woke my aunt and uncle up," Harry said, remembering in more detail as he dragged the memory from his mind, something that he had never actually done before, preferring to keep it hidden.

Sirius threw a scathing look at his godson's owl, who was on a porch near the corner of the room. Hedwig just stared back at him, ruffling her feathers and looking affronted.

Harry, oblivious to the exchange between his pet and godfather, continued, "Obviously, it woke up the Dursleys but I managed to get away in time, even with Uncle Vernon trying to stop me," Harry said this lightly, but even he couldn't mask a slight bitterness against his so-called relatives. Sirius, Remus, and the Weasley's were more like family then they would ever be.

"I think I may have kicked him as well," Harry added thoughtfully.

"Well, if you did, it served them right, the Little Pronglet Abusers," Sirius said, giving Harry a slight squeeze and not noticing the slight rise of Harry's eyebrows.

"So, now that you're away from those stupid, idiotic, moronic relatives of yours," Remus said almost happily and showing an uncharacteristic amount of vindictiveness, making Sirius wonder if there were any side effects of that potion. "I'm curious to know how on earth Fred, George and Ron managed to get a hold of a flying car."

"Speaking of which, I wonder whatever happened to my old motorbike," Sirius said thoughtfully, remembering his old, beloved machine. However, he snapped out of these thoughts a moment later and said, "Never mind, I'll find out about it later. How did they manage to get a hold of that car? You have no idea how long it took me to get my bike done."

"It was Mr Weasley's," Harry answered, thankful that for once there was a question with a simple answer.

Remus blinked in slight surprise – not as much as he would have normally, but with all the Death Eaters, three-headed dogs, and meddling fools that called themselves Headmasters, it was harder to get him surprised.

"Erm, isn't Mr Weasley the Head of the Department of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts?" Remus asked, recalling an article he had read several years ago.

"Yep," Harry said, hoping that the simple questions with easy answers would continue.

"Wouldn't that mean that he would be breaking his own laws?" Remus asked, now slightly confused.

"Actually, according to Mrs Weasley, he made sure that there were loopholes in the law when he wrote it," Harry answered, sounding relatively amused.

"I always wondered where Ron got his rule-breaking tendency from," Remus murmured.

"Anyway, we're getting off topic," Sirius said, wanting to hear the rest of the story so that his fears were put to bay. After all, nothing worse then what had happened in Harry's first and fourth years could have happened in his second year, right?

Right?

Unfortunately, the only way he could get that answer was by Harry telling him the story, and so far it wasn't looking like the answer he wanted to get.

"Right," said Harry, not minding continuing the story for perhaps the first time that day.

"So, we flew to The Burrow, getting there around about when the sun rose," Harry narrated.

"Let me guess, you got caught by Mrs Weasley," Sirius asked, sounding amused.

"How did you know that?" Harry asked, looking up at his godfather, surprised.

"Because with seven kids, Molly's bound to have a few tricks up her sleeve, and I'm sure she would notice that three of her children were missing. Merlin knows your grandmother could do it plenty of times with me and your Dad," Sirius explained to him, slight wistfulness in his eyes.

Harry nodded silently, feeling a slight pang as he remembered his deceased father. Sometimes, it was hard to imagine that his Dad had actually once lived, played Quidditch and gone to school just as he once had. But that was perhaps the most brilliant thing about living with Sirius and Remus, aside from having guardians that actually cared. They made his parents seem more alive, more then just the people that had died for him.

"So, how long did Molly rant?" Remus prodded, trying to keep the mood lighter and not depressed.

Harry snorted, returning his thoughts back to re-telling his second year without killing his guardians, being smothered to death or grounded for the rest of eternity. "Ages. It was mainly at Fred and George though, and a little bit at Ron. She didn't yell at me at all."

"Of course not, it wasn't your fault!" Sirius exclaimed, sitting up slightly as he scrutinized his godson.

"Yeah, I know," Harry said, avoiding his godfathers eyes. He had already had several long talks about feeling guilty about things (mainly Cedric's death) and he had absolutely no desire to repeat any of them.

"Anyway, so after Mrs Weasley finished yelling, we ate breakfast and then she told the twins and Ron that they had to de-gnome the garden," Harry said, the memory slightly clearer now. "Since I had never seen that happening, I went with them to help."

"That was sweet of you, especially since you must have been absolutely exhausted," Sirius said, pressing kiss to his Harry's head.

Harry shrugged and just continued, "Well, we de-gnomed the garden, had quite a lot of fun, actually. Then Mr Weasley got back."

"And he lectured you as well?" Remus asked, not knowing the answer as he didn't know Arthur as well as he knew Molly.

"Actually, he asked us if it went well," Harry said with a laugh.

Sirius laughed as well, "That does sound like Arthur!"

"So nothing else really happened that summer?" Remus asked, rather cautiously. He didn't _think_ that anything else had happened but Remus was quickly learning that with Harry James Potter, you never really knew.

"Er, I don't think so," Harry answered, wracking his brain for what had happened.

"So everything was peaceful at the Weasleys?" Remus asked, prodding for information.

"Yeah, it was great, we played Quidditch in the field, and mucked around and everything," Harry said enthusiastically. Though that summer had started out as his worst, it had ended up turning into one of his best; only beaten by this one.

"What about when you went shopping for your school supplies?" Remus asked, sounding pleased from all the answers so far. Sirius was also pleased – it seemed his fears were unfounded.

"Shopping," said Harry, but then his face fell. "Ah damn, I forgot about that. Do I have to?" he almost whined.

"Yes," Sirius said, sighing as he thought, _Spoke too soon._

"Really?" Harry asked, half pleading.

"Yes," Sirius answered again, rubbing Harry's arm slightly with his own that was still slung over his godsons shoulder.

"It can't be that bad," Remus said brightly, not sounding at all confident or sure of himself.

"Well, we were going to floo to Diagon Alley," Harry explained, "And I had never done it before, so Ron went before me. Then when it was my turn, I must have coughed on the soot or something."

"What?" Sirius asked, sounding a little panicked.

Remus was eyeing his potion again. He had the feeling he might need it.

"I ended up in some store," Harry said, casually, and Sirius could feel that Harry was slightly tense.

And he soon figured out why. Or, at least, part of the reason why. "Harry," he said slowly, "There are no fireplaces in any of the stores in Diagon Alley."

Harry ducked his head and mumbled something incoherent.

"Could you repeat that?" Remus asked forcefully, not wanting to believe what he thought that Harry had said. Sirius just looked at this godson, wishing that he could have the heightened hearing that Remus had.

"I sort of… ended up… in… Knockturn Alley," Harry admitted, head still ducked, and voice barely a whisper.

"What do you mean, Knockturn Alley," Sirius said in a deathly whisper.

"Um, Borgin and Burkes store in that place," Harry admitted.

"Harry James Potter, please tell me that you got out of there," Sirius said, knowing that it really wasn't Harry's fault that he had ended up in that place. But just the image of his little, innocent green-eyed godson in that absolutely horrible place…

Remus was nodding emphatically to Sirius' statement. He could just imagine the horrible things that someone would do to his cub if they found him in Knockturn Alley.

"Well, no," Harry said, highly hesitant to admit it, and with good reason to as Sirius immediately gave him The Look. So, he hastily added, "But I did try!"

"What stopped you?" asked Sirius, no longer giving Harry The Look now that he knew that Harry didn't intentionally stay and put himself in danger.

"I was walking out," Harry explained, also more relaxed when he realized that Sirius wasn't going to blow up about Knockturn Alley. _Then again,_ Harry thought, seeing the stormy anger in his godfather's eyes, _Maybe that's not quite true._

"When I ran into Draco Malfoy and his father," Harry said, continuing smoothly from where he left off.

"What?" Sirius hissed. Knockturn Alley, Borgin and Burkes, _and_ the Malfoy's? And his poor godson probably hadn't known what on earth had been going on. He made a mental note to never, ever let Harry floo on his phone. They could apperate… or something. Just not the floo, if anything like that happened his godson again… And he also figured that portkeys were not a good idea either, as Harry hated them and was also most likely scared of them ever since the third task.

Realizing that Harry was still talking, he tuned back into the conversation, and also gave Harry a brief hug.

"…selling something while Draco was looking around at the products," Harry was saying.

"What was Lucius selling?" Sirius asked, trying not to think too hard about his naïve, little godson in the same room with a Death Eater and a man who was as good as a Death Eater. Judging by the incredibly tight grip he had on his godson's hand, it wasn't working to well.

"I don't know, they never said," Harry answered. "All Malfoy mentioned was that he had a few 'items' that he didn't want found by the Ministry in one of the raids that they had apparently set up."

"I heard about those," Remus said, "And I'm not surprised Malfoy was worried. He was most likely at the top of the list."

"Most probably, but I'm more curious to know if you got out of there safely," Sirius interjected impatiently.

"Yeah, I did," Harry said, letting out a small sigh of relief when Sirius' grip lessened at this answer. "I left the store after the Malfoy's, and Mr Borgin left, and then I was lucky enough to run into Hagrid and he led me back to Diagon Alley."

Sirius smiled widely in relief, mentally making a note to not punish Hagrid that bad for the dragon and also vowing to thank Hagrid for getting Harry out of there before something really bad happened.

Remus was thinking the same, and also had a highly relieved look on his face. He also thumped his heart a few times, just to make sure it was still beating.

"So, you met up with the Weasleys, right?" Sirius asked, staring at Harry.

"Yep, and Hermione as well," Harry said happily.

"Good," Sirius murmured, relaxing into the couch once more. "Good."

"Well, nothing really big happened after that," Harry said. "Oh, except that Gilderoy bloody Lockhart had a book signing at Flourish and Blotts."

The tone in which he said this was so unlike Harry that Sirius rose an eyebrow and said dryly, "You really don't like him, do you?"

"And watch you're language," Remus added, slightly sternly.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"So, what happened with this Lockhart character? What has he written, anyway?" asked Sirius, realizing that he had never actually heard of Gilderoy Lockhart.

"I believe he wrote several books about Defense Against the Dark Arts," Remus said, frowning thoughtfully. "I never read them myself though."

"Lucky you," Harry said wryly, "They were horrible, and we had to buy the whole set of them for Hogwarts."

"Were they really that bad?" Sirius asked curiously.

"Yes," said Harry, sounding annoyed, "And Lockhart was even worse. Thought that he was the important and famous person on the entire planet."

"Was he really that bad?" asked Sirius, sounding relatively amused. He didn't think that he'd ever seen anyone get such an amusing reaction from Harry. The boy was practically whining!

"Yeah, and then a reporter steps on Ron's foot, which makes Lockhart notice me and then he just _grabs_ me and practically forces me to take a bloody picture with him. And _then_ he adds that he's going to be the bloody Defense teacher!" Harry ranted, completely forgetting about his audience.

"Were you hurt?" asked Remus, eyes slightly narrow and with a gold tint.

"Not really, just incredibly annoyed," Harry answered, leaning back into the couch.

Sirius had already put Lockhart on his list for making his Harry feel uncomfortable in public and had the feeling that he would most likely get plenty of reasons. Harry didn't speak like that about someone that merely irked him.

"You got away, yes?" Remus asked, watching Harry carefully.

"Yeah," Harry answered, nodding. "Not without the entire collection of Lockhart books free of charge, though," he added, slightly bitterly.

Sirius scowled once more.

"The next part was funny, though," Harry said, brightening up some.

"Really?" Remus asked, relaxing into his own chair and smiling at Harry.

"Yeah, we ran into Malfoy again," Harry began, but was cut off by Sirius.

"Kiddo, I don't see how that is a good thing," Sirius said wryly.

"That's because you didn't let me finish," Harry said. "So, we ran into Malfoy. And then he started insulting Mr Weasley because Ginny's books were second-hand and stuff. They ended up having a huge fight right in the middle of the store. Store manager wasn't too pleased, and neither was Malfoy for that matter."

Sirius laughed whole-heartedly, wishing he could have seen it. He wouldn't have expected that mild-mannered Arthur would do something like that.

"Nice to hear," Remus conceded, smiling.

"And now," Harry said, slightly dramatically, "I have something that both of you are going to love to hear."

"Oh?" Sirius said, smiling.

"Yep. The rest of the summer was completely trouble-free."

"Really?" Sirius asked, hardly daring to believe it.

"Yep," Harry said, nodding.

"So then what happened on the train to Hogwarts?" asked Remus, smiling at Harry's youthful exuberance.

Harry's eyes widened slightly as he remembered that small disaster. "Er, about that…"

"What on earth could have gone wrong on the Hogwarts Express?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"Nothing went wrong with the train… it's just that Ron and I couldn't get past the barrier. And since we had been running late, Ron and I were the last ones to try to get through…" Harry trailed off, but his guardians got the gist of it.

Remus rubbed his forehead and said in a slightly pleading tone, "Please tell me you used Hedwig to send a letter to the school."

Harry grinned sheepishly and said, "Well… not quite."

Sirius closed his eyes for several seconds and then asked, "What did you do?"

"Well, see, Ron had the idea to… erm… take the car and fly it to Hogwarts," Harry admitted, the second part of his sentence quiet and making Sirius strain to hear it.

"You WHAT?" Sirius blew up, looking faint.

Harry winced and, looking down, said, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Sirius just shook his head in disbelief. "A flying car. A bloody flying car. What on earth were you thinking?"

"What happened?" Remus asked, weakly. There was still a slight chance that maybe Molly had appeared and told them off for trying or something…

"Well, we got into the car and everything and we took off smoothly, it was just the Invisibility Booster that was playing up," Harry said, trying to make it sound as safe as possible.

"Still, why on earth would you fly a _car_ to _Hogwarts,"_ Sirius ranted, jumping up and pacing as he lectured his godson. "You have an owl, why didn't you just write to someone, anyone! Or you could have _waited_ at the car for Molly and Arthur…"

"I know," Harry said, sighing slightly. He really didn't find it fair that he was getting lectured about this nearly three years after it had happened.

"Sirius, perhaps you should stop so we can find out what happened afterwards," Remus interrupted quietly after a few minutes. He had been hyperventilating slightly, but had managed to return his breathing to normal. For now, at any rate.

Sirius stopped and nodded once, sitting back down on the couch but not before saying sternly, "Don't think that I'm finished with this, Harry James."

Harry nodded, wincing when he realized that the lecture would be that much worse when they found out about the landing.

"So, did you get to Hogwarts safely?" Sirius finally ventured to ask after several minutes of silence where everybody refused to speak up.

Wincing again, and knowing that there really was no way to avoid this Harry said, "Sort of… See, we kinda crashed into the Whomping Willow when we tried to land…"

Remus immediately grabbed the potion next to him, and brought it up to his lips.

It was empty.

 

 


	8. Year Two, Part Three

_Remus immediately grabbed the potion next to him, and brought it up to his lips._

_It was empty._

Sirius' tirade was cut off before he could even start it, something Harry was incredibly thankful for. Sirius turned to his best friend indignantly, ready to demand from his best friend why he was interrupting him from delivering a sorely needed scolding to his godson.

What he was made him blink several times in surprise. His always calm best friend of over twenty years seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating as he stared at a potions vial in disbelief.

"Er, Remus?" Sirius asked tentatively, glancing at Harry, who was staring at him. Despite his previous unconventional upbringing, Harry had already gotten used to Sirius being a paternal figure and, as such, thought that Sirius had all the answers.

"Be… Fine…" Remus managed to breathe out, leaning back on his chair and attempting to calm himself down by closing his eyes.

"Pronglet, get Remus some water, will you?" Sirius requested, somewhat hesitantly having no idea what to do. Remus was always the one in this position, he was supposed to be the one getting calmed down!

Harry quickly obeyed running into the kitchen and grabbing the nearest glass and filling it with water. He ran back into the living room, wondering wryly whether he would ever look at the room the same way again.

Sirius accepted the glass from his godson, and turned around to offer it to the still hyperventilating werewolf. Remus took the glass with shaky hands and took a deep drink of it, counting backwards from ten all the while. He hadn't been this shocked and terrified since he had found out that James, Sirius, and Peter had become illegal Animagi.

Harry was looking at his two guardians apprehensively, shifting from foot to foot. At the beginning, he had thought that Sirius would be the one to suffer the panic attacks while Remus would be his ever patient self. But, it seemed that Remus was no less overprotective of his charge then Sirius was. He just showed it in different ways.

After a solid five minutes of silence, Remus finally felt ready to speak. "What on earth were you thinking, Harry?" he asked, not shouting but with an underlying stern tone – and his voice still sounded shocked as well.

Harry winced, so much for getting away with not getting a lecture.

"I think we should finish the story first," Sirius interrupted, standing up. Seeing the relieved look on Harry's face, the man added sternly, "We will have a long talk about everything when we finish, don't you worry, Harry."

Harry looked up at Sirius with his puppy-dog pout.

Sirius determinedly looked away, thinking, _must not look Harry in the eyes. Must not look Harry in the eyes._ He led Harry back over to the couch, a steering hand on the small of his back.

"Probably a good idea," Remus said, frowning, "I'm getting the feeling that it's not going to get much better."

Harry let Sirius fuss over him with the blanket again, wondering how to twist this story so that it wouldn't sound so bad. He chewed on his lip, not noticing the knowing look that his guardians passed between them.

"Harry," Sirius said, settling himself down next to his godson, one arm over the boy's shoulder.

"Yeah?" Harry asked, looking up, in slight surprise.

"I wasn't kidding when I told you not to lie to me. I want the whole truth, are we understood?" Sirius said to him firmly.

"Yes," Harry muttered, wondering how Sirius had managed to tell what he was thinking.

"Well, then, keep going, Harry," Remus said, though now he spoke with a slight edge in his voice, dreading what he was about to be told.

"Did you get caught with the car?" Sirius asked, hoping that someone had decided to try and teach his godson that it was wrong to put his life in danger.

"Yes," Harry scowled. "By Snape, of all people."

Sirius seemed torn between abusing the man who had been his longtime enemy and being pleased that he had caught Harry, which meant that Harry would have been punished.

"Let's skip to the next part," Remus interrupted. "I don't think my heart can handle this…"

"I don't think my heart will be able to handle the next parts, if the year before was any sign," Sirius muttered under his breath.

"It's not that bad," Harry exclaimed, sulking a little.

"I'll be the judge of that," Sirius said, "keep going."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry said under his breath. He then continued on, louder, "Anyway, we got detention from McGonagall and a warning from Dumbledore. And the next morning we got a Howler from Mrs. Weasley."

Sirius nodded approvingly.

"As for after that, well," Harry hesitated, making both Sirius and Remus groan and bury their heads in their hands. It seemed that they had finally learned that all was not fun and games for Harry.

_Maybe it's really not that bad,_ Sirius thought to himself optimistically. Or perhaps they were just delusional…

Remus, always quicker to accept things then Sirius was thinking the opposite; _I wonder if they have any spare beds at St Mungos…_

"It's not that bad, right," Sirius mumbled under his breath. "It can't be that bad. After all, Dumbledore can't do much worse then a troll…"

"Harry, keep going," Remus interrupted Sirius' ramblings.

"Nothing much happened for awhile, truth be told. Well, other then Lockhart being a completely incompetent teacher," Harry said, scowling.

"Really," Sirius said incredulously, hardly daring to believe it.

"You're positive?" Remus asked, suspiciously. "What happened during your detention?"

"It wasn't out in the Forbidden Forest again, was it?" Sirius asked sharply.

"No, but I wish it was," Harry said, still scowling. "I had it with bloody Lockhart."

"Language," Remus chided, wondering what Lockhart was like to make Harry hate him so much. Remus had never bothered reading Lockhart's books; he had never seen the need to. "What did he make you do?"

"He made me spend seven bloody hours answering his fan mail," Harry said scathingly. "Seven hours! It was torture, I swear."

"His fan mail," Sirius said in disbelief. "He made you answer his _fan mail."_

"For seven hours," Harry added indignantly, for once glad that he was talking about this. It felt good to be able to complain to someone other then Ron and Hermione.

"That's completely ridiculous," Remus said frowning, "For one thing, you need your sleep."

"Trust me, going to bed was like absolute heaven after that torture," Harry said bitterly.

Sirius mentally noted down Lockhart, wondering where he was. If he was the media darling Harry made him out to be, Sirius was surprised he hadn't heard of him. However, there was probably a perfectly normal explanation that didn't include trolls.

"The detention ended really weird, though," Harry said, frowning.

"Lockhart declared that he was the biggest git of all time?" Sirius asked, brightening slightly.

"No, but that was obvious. Seriously, you should have seen our first Defense Lesson," Harry said. "Anyway, no, it wasn't that, I heard a voice. It was saying something about killing."

"What?" Sirius asked sharply, his heart freezing. There was a perfectly normal explanation.

"Are you sure you weren't hearing things from lack of sleep," Remus asked gently, knowing Harry most likely wouldn't want to hear something like that.

"That's what we thought at the time," Harry answered. "But it wasn't too bad, Lockhart finally realized what the time was and let me go."

"Good to hear," said Sirius, "Although, Harry, you know you're not meant to enjoy detention…"

"I know, but come on Sirius, answering his _fan mail?_ That's just torture, plain and simple. I mean, _Snape_ gives out better detentions then he does!" Harry exclaimed.

"And I can't believe you just said that," Sirius answered, blinking in surprise.

"Neither can I, but it's the truth," Harry said.

"Anyway, what next?" Harry mused. Despite the fact that his second year was one of his most dangerous, there weren't really many events.

"I believe you mentioned something about Lockhart's first Defense Lesson," Sirius prompted, hoping that Lockhart was not another insane Defense teacher with Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head. But no, there was a perfectly normal explanation for why he hadn't heard about Lockhart that didn't include trolls or murderers.

"Let's just say that he gave us a test that consisted of what all his favorite things were and then concluded by letting loose a cage full of freshly caught Cornish Pixies," Harry said, wincing at the memory.

"Sorry," Sirius said, coughing slightly, not quite believing his ears.

"I'm not kidding," Harry answered.

"Has Dumbledore ever heard of the word 'competency'," Remus mused out loud, surprising Sirius and Harry, who had never heard Remus speak against the Headmaster, exempting when Harry had told him about his living conditions with the Dursleys.

"He has. He hired you, didn't he?" Harry said simply, and honestly.

Remus smiled warmly at Harry, forgetting about the tale he had heard so far for a moment. "Thank you, Harry."

Sirius smiled fondly and asked, "So, anything else interesting happen?"

"Well, for a while, it was only stupid Lockhart and his stupid classes, but then things picked up… around Halloween, I'd say it was," Harry said.

"I always said that stupid holiday was cursed," Sirius said.

"Well, to make a long story short, Nick helped me out when I was in jam with Filch," Harry explained, deciding not to go into detail about his snooping. "In return, I promised to go to his Death Day party."

"Why would anybody want to celebrate the day they died?" Sirius said. "Although, truth be told, I don't understand why people become ghosts in the first place."

"I don't know why they want to celebrate it, but I promised so we went, and you're right, it was dead depressing. We met Moaning Myrtle, as well," Harry said, shuddering slightly at the thought of the ghost that haunted the girls toilets.

"Moaning Myrtle," Remus repeated, frowning slightly as he tried to remember. "I don't know if I remember her…"

"You probably wouldn't, she haunts the girls bathrooms," Harry explained, "She only leaves… sometimes…" Harry said, shuddering once more when he remembered the last time she had left.

"Alright, kiddo, what happened with her?" Sirius asked, squeezing Harry tighter to him when he felt the shudders.

"Let's just say she had a crush on me and leave it at that, alright?" Harry said shortly, scowling when his two guardians failed to suppress their laughter.

"Aw, my godson's all grown up and being chased by girls," Sirius cooed, ruffling Harry's hair.

"Oh, shut it," Harry grumbled, blushing.

"It wouldn't be that bad, just think, you wouldn't have to keep buying her gifts!" Sirius said teasingly, making Harry blush and scowl.

"Anyway, the Death Day party isn't what's important about that day, it's what happened after it," Harry said loudly, trying to stop his guardians from laughing at his predicament with the ghost.

Sirius filed the information away for future reference and returned his attention to his godson, as did Remus. However, Sirius could not wipe the smirk off his face.

Remus, on the other hand, got the idea that this next bit wouldn't be nearly as amusing. At least the Death Day party had given them the chance to get some blackmail material on Harry.

"Well… Ron, Hermione, and I left the Death Day party and were heading up to the Great Hall when I heard that voice again," Harry said hesitantly, wondering what his guardians would say when they heard about just what had been causing that voice.

Sirius closed his eyes and sighed. He then said in a stiff voice, "Harry James, please tell me you went down to get a teacher and did not follow that voice."

"Well, see…" Harry said, trailing off. "How do I put this?"

"How about, 'I put myself in danger and am going to get in trouble for it'," Remus suggested dryly.

"It was going to kill someone, what was I meant to do," Harry pointed out, slightly angrily.

"And that was all the more reason to get a teacher," Sirius countered. "Please tell you didn't get hurt."

"I didn't," Harry said readily. "I seriously didn't," he added, at Sirius' disbelieving glance.

"Well then, what happened?" Remus asked, thanking everyone he could think of that his cub had stayed safe. However, he had the niggling feeling that this wasn't over yet.

"We got up to the corridor, and Mrs. Norris had been petrified," Harry explained quietly. "Of course, we didn't know that… we thought she was dead… There was a message on the wall – 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware'."

_Stupid, bloody, incompetent Headmaster. How I would love to give him a piece of mind. And preferably something that will turn him into a goat,_ Sirius found himself thinking, fantasizing ways to hex that moron that called himself a Headmaster.

"And this is when you went to get the teacher, yes?" Remus asked, closing his eyes again. He, James, and Sirius had always joked that Harry would become the death of them, but this was just plain ridiculous.

"Actually, the teachers came to us. Along with every single other person in the school," Harry said slightly bitterly.

"That's annoying, but at least it means that you weren't in danger. I doubt that anyone would try to attack an entire school on their own," Sirius said, sounding relieved.

"No – but the whole school suspected us," Harry said, frowning.

"What?" Sirius exclaimed. "How on earth could they suspect my innocent little Pronglet?"

"Easily enough, apparently," Harry mumbled.

"What happened next?" Remus cut in, wanting this to be over with so he could go curl up in his bed with a book, a hot water bottle and a five kilogram block of chocolate to calm down.

"We went up to Lockhart's office and Dumbledore discovered that Mrs. Norris had been petrified," Harry answered. "We had to answer loads of questions about where we'd been and all that stuff and, after Snape trying to get me kicked off the Quidditch Team, they let us go."

"Why on earth would Snape try to get you kicked off the Quidditch Team?" Sirius exclaimed, temper flaring.

"So that I wouldn't beat Malfoy," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "Thankfully Professor McGonagall showed more sense."

"Did he make the Quidditch Team that year?" Sirius asked, wracking his brain for anything Harry might have said about the topic.

"Oh, didn't I mention that?" Harry said, blinking in surprise. "Yeah, he made the team because his father 'donated' brand new brooms to the 'school'," Harry added, sarcasm weighing his voice as he said 'donated' and 'school'.

"A typical Malfoy," Sirius scoffed. "Lucius did the same thing when we were at school, remember, Remus?"

"Quite, after all, you and James constantly talked about it," Remus answered him dryly.

"Anyway, so what did Dumbledore say when you told him about the voice?" Sirius asked, returning his attention to his godson.

"Um, well," Harry said, looking down and fidgeting slightly.

"Harry…" Sirius said in a warning tone.

"Well… um… I kinda, maybe forgot to tell him," Harry said in a rush.

"Harry," Sirius half-groaned, holding a hand to his head. "Why on earth wouldn't you tell Dumbledore something as important as that?"

Harry shrugged. He didn't even know why, if he told the truth. He was just used to never asking for help from adults. Even with Sirius and Remus he was yet to get used to it, though he was slightly better after the previous year. Having a devoted godfather and guardian at his beck and call was something he wasn't used to.

"Ron and Hermione told me that hearing voices that no-one else could hear is not a good thing – in either the Muggle or Wizarding worlds."

"Kiddo, we are definitely going to talk about this," Sirius vowed, shaking his head vigorously. He mentally started another list, this one of things he need to talk to Harry about. He would take care of that after he got his revenge on everyone who made his cute little Pronglet upset.

"Is the next thing that happened better?" Remus asked desperately. He seriously need a reprieve.

"The next thing," Harry mused, searching his mind for just what was next. He brightened for a moment, remembering what it was, but then sagged when he remembered what had happened afterwards. He closed his eyes briefly and thought with an inward sigh, _oh well. At least I won't get grounded since it wasn't my fault._

"Harry," Sirius prodded cautiously. It couldn't be that bad. After all, what could be worse then trolls and voices petrifying cats?

"The next big things that happened was probably… the Quidditch Game," Harry said, stalling for as long as he could.

"And what's so bad about a Quidditch Game?" Sirius asked slowly, refusing to acknowledge the dread building in his heart.

Remus, on the other hand, was by now resigned that his precious cub hadn't had a very good Hogwarts education. Well, if Dumbledore even thought that he would be able to let his cub put himself in danger again, he certainly had another think coming!

"Well, it started out great, the team was doing well – I mean, we had to be, after all those five am practices-" Here, Harry was interrupted once more by Sirius.

"What do you mean five am practices? You need your sleep!"

Remus added: "I remember having to talk James out of six am practices."

Harry rolled his eyes, "I know, but seriously, don't worry about it, it was just Wood's fanaticism coming through."

"I should have known it would be Oliver," Remus murmured, recalling when said captain had once handed in an essay about Quidditch instead of on the Unforgivables as he was meant to.

"Well, at the beginning it was going well," Harry said, "And then…"

"And then what?" Sirius asked, when it was evident that Harry would not continue without encouragement.

"Well…" Harry hesitated a moment before deciding to get it over and done with, "."

"Slow down, Harry," Sirius said, looking surprised, "And say that again." _And please don't let it be what I think it is._

"A Bludger sort of started attacking me," Harry said clearly, hoping that this wouldn't provoke too much of a reaction from his guardians.

"Bludgers are meant to attack you, though," Remus said, trying to comprehend what his honorary nephew was trying to say.

"Well, this one sort of kept targeting me," Harry explained, "as in, it didn't stop no matter how many times Fred and George hit it."

"I see," Remus said with forced calm, mentally cataloging where every bit of chocolate was in the house. Hopefully Sirius hadn't found his hidden stash in his closet, or that one hidden in one of his pillow cases.

"And Dumbledore didn't stop this why?" Sirius asked furiously, jumping up to pace around the room. "Who was it this time? That moron Snape? Lockhart? Another insane teacher that the stupid old man let into his school?"

"Actually, it was Dobby, that house-elf," Harry said.

Sirius stopped and stared at him in shock. "A house-elf? Why on earth would a house-elf want to kill my godson? My poor little baby!"

Harry blushed at Sirius' words. He didn't think he'd ever get used to Sirius' overprotective streak.

"How badly were you hurt," Remus asked Harry softly, making Sirius stop mid-rant.

"Broken arm," Harry answered nonchalantly. Although the potion was absolutely disgusting, that really hadn't been his worst injury.

"That's all," Sirius asked. "Are you sure? And did you go straight to Madam Pomfrey?"

"Lockhart," was all Harry said with a scowl.

"What about him?" Sirius demanded. "What is he doing when you should be heading up to the hospital wing?"

"We tried to stop him, I wanted to go to the hospital wing but he wouldn't let me. He assumed that he could heal it better then Madam Pomfrey could," Harry explained, rolling his eyes. To this day, he didn't know what Hermione had seen in Lockhart.

"And what did he do?" Remus asked, eyes flashing gold, wondering where Lockhart was now. If he had hurt his cub, he didn't know what he'd do.

"He removed all the bones in my arm," Harry explained, "Madam Pomfrey was furious."

Sirius looked ready to explode again, but before he could, his rant was stopped for a second time, this time by the fireplace flaring green once more. Harry found himself hoping it wasn't Ron so his best friend wouldn't get him in trouble again.

It wasn't Ron. Instead out stepped the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry elegantly, completely unaware that he had just walked into a room where there were two people who were hardly happy with him.

"How are we all," Dumbledore asked pleasantly, "I've come to discuss Harry's arrangements to stay with the Dursleys."

Sirius narrowed his eyes and Remus growled in response. Harry groaned. Sometimes, Dumbledore truly had the worst timing.

Dumbledore finally noticed the two death glares being sent his way, but merely rose an eyebrow in surprise. "Is something the matter, gentlemen?"

"You mean other then the fact that you let my godson – my little, eleven year old godson, face a FULLY GROWN MOUNTAIN TROLL AND A VOLDEMORT POSESSED DEFENCE TEACHER!" Sirius exploded, intensifying his glare.

"Not to mention leaving _my_ cub at the Dursleys," Remus said, not yelling but still managing to sound intimidating as he glared at his old Headmaster. "You promised me he would be safe!"

"I assure you, he was safe," Dumbledore interjected calmly, then turned to Sirius, slightly dreading what was to come. All three marauders had been notoriously overprotective of their little heir, and that had only intensified over the years, especially with Sirius and Remus' determination to make sure that Lily and James had not died in vain.

"Safe?" Sirius laughed bitterly. "You called getting locked up without food for days on end, being safe? And what on earth were you thinking, letting a bloody _mountain troll_ in where it could attack anybody! Where it _did_ attack my little Pronglet!"

"I assume Harry has been telling you about his school years," Dumbledore interjected, speaking calmly but certainly not feeling as such. Although he knew he would certainly not be able to avoid this, a part of him had hoped that Sirius and Remus would never find out the full extent of Harry's adventures.

"Unfortunately," Harry said under his breath, almost feeling sorry for the Headmaster. But, if Sirius and Remus blew off their steam on him, maybe they wouldn't be so mad when they found out about the Chamber of Secrets. _Yeah, right,_ a cynical voice inside him said, _and maybe Snape will start giving out cookies in class._

"I assure you, Sirius, I had no control over this," Dumbledore said, backing up a little bit. It was times like these that made it quite clear just why people could believe that Sirius had killed twelve men.

"That's completely ridiculous!" Sirius countered scornfully. "You can't tell me that you didn't notice that one of your staff members was being controlled by Voldemort! And that bloody car! Why on earth couldn't you stop them from doing such foolish and idiotic things!"

"Well, how was I to know that three of my students were brewing Polyjuice Potion?" Dumbledore countered, "I assure you, I did my best." The old Headmaster was gradually edging towards the fireplace, wanting to get away. He sincerely doubted his argument would continue to work when Sirius found out about the Basilisk.

Sirius snorted and said scathingly, "Your best, right."

"Since you are in the middle of something, I will leave you alone," Dumbledore said, trying to find some Floo Powder quickly. The conversation he had been planning to have could wait for a time when the two marauders weren't so inclined to hex him.

Harry sighed in relief, after all, he had just gotten his godfather back, he didn't want him to return to Azkaban for murdering the Headmaster.

Sirius leaned forward and said in a vicious whisper, so his innocent little godson wouldn't be able to hear, "Don't think this is over, old man. If something like this happens to Harry on your watch again, then…" Sirius leaned back, letting his sentence trail off ominously. Twelve years in Azkaban had certainly made him a formidable character.

Dumbledore threw the Floo Powder into the fireplace not noticing that, with a discreet flick of Remus' wand, his hair had turned a vibrant orange with hot pink streaks. Instead, his mind was preoccupied with what Sirius had in plan for him. Perhaps he should consider making an epitaph…

Sirius took a deep breath to calm himself after Dumbledore left. It had felt good to storm at the Headmaster a bit, but he was still furious at the older man. There was no way he was going to get away with not acting when his godson was in danger.

He was about to take another deep breath when he registered just what Dumbledore had said. His eyes snapped open.

"Harry James Potter, just what did Dumbledore mean when he said that three of his students were brewing Polyjuice Potion?"

Harry looked to the ground – how was he going to explain this to them without getting grounded for the next twenty years?

 


	9. Year Two, Part Four

_- **Previously on Reactions** -_

_He was about to take another deep breath when he registered just what Dumbledore had said. His eyes snapped open._

_"Harry James Potter, just what did Dumbledore mean when he said that three of his students were brewing Polyjuice Potion!"_

_Harry looked to the ground – how was he going to explain this to them without getting grounded for the next twenty years?_

- **Second Years Explosive Finale-**

"Yeah… about that…," Harry said, with a deer caught in the headlights look.

"I know that look Harry James," Remus said sternly, "No trying to get around it. Why in the world would you, Ron, and Hermione be brewing Polyjuice Potion? Sirius, stop pacing and _sit down."_

"Fine," Sirius grumbled and sat down next to Harry on the couch.

"Well, you know, Professor Dumbledore didn't say it was me, Ron, and Hermione," Harry pointed out, futilely trying to avoid the question.

"Answer the question, Harry," Sirius said, looking tense as he tried to prepare himself for another absolutely insane dangerous stunt done by Harry and his friends.

"Fine," Harry said, sounding slightly sulky. "We thought that maybe Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin, and the one opening the chamber."

Before he could continue, Remus interrupted him, "Harry, I asked why you were making Polyjuice Potion, not about the Chamber."

"Wait a second, I'm getting there," Harry said, rolling his eyes.

"Watch the tone, Harry," Sirius said. "And I can understand why you think Malfoy would want to get rid of the muggle-born's, but I doubt he's the Heir of Slytherin."

"Yeah, well, we thought he might have been, but, of course, we needed proof," Harry explained. "So, Hermione came up with the idea of the Polyjuice to sneak into the Slytherin common room and finding out."

"I suppose that isn't a horrible idea, but really Harry, you were in second year. Polyjuice is an incredibly complex potion," Remus said. He sighed and then asked, "What happened?"

"Oh, come on," Harry said indignantly. "We're not idiots. And both of you said yourselves that Hermione is the smartest witch of our generation. The potion was perfect. But it took ages to make."

Sirius raised an eyebrow dubiously and exchanged glances with Remus. "Alright, Harry," Sirius said slowly, finding it doubtful that three second years, though undoubtedly smart second years, managed to make such an immensely difficult potion without mistakes. He paused for a moment before realizing, "Hang on, how did you get the ingredients?"

"Ah, about that," Harry said, wincing. "See, we kinda maybe sorta… stoleitfromSnape," he said quickly.

"Really?" Sirius asked, turning his head to look at Harry.

"Yes," Harry said cautiously, surprised that he wasn't going to get in trouble.

"Harry," Remus sighed, closing his eyes, wonder whether there was any point in scolding the boy, especially since Sirius didn't look anything other then happy at the fact that the trio had used ingredients from Snape's private stores. "You really shouldn't steal from your teachers."

He didn't bother to continue, wanting to get the story over and done with. He could always lecture him if it ever happened again and it would have a greater impact – he hoped. "So, what happened while the potion was brewing?"

Harry laughed bitterly and said, "Quite a lot, unfortunately."

Sirius sighed heavily and put a hand to his head, as though trying to ward off a headache. "Alright, what happened?"

"Just so I can prepare myself… what is this going to contain?" Remus asked hesitantly, obviously dreading the answer.

"It's not that bad," Harry insisted, looking at Remus with wide eyes. "I swear, it wasn't really dangerous…"

"Right," Remus murmured, recognizing the look on Harry's face that the boy was stretching the truth. "Hang on one moment, Harry, will you?"

"Sure," Harry said, looking thrilled that he had managed to get some extra time before he had to reveal everything. Sirius was glaring at Remus. It changed to a confused stare when he saw Remus opening the liquor cabinet.

Remus walked in sedately, feeling calmer now that he had downed some fire-whiskey. He left the cabinet open, guessing that Sirius may need some, especially since they were already out of calming potions in the house and Harry was barely halfway through his second year story. If it got any worse, Remus would calmly lock himself in Dumbledore's office on the full moon and not feel a shred of remorse. The nerve of that man - letting his cub get into so much danger!

Sirius smirked as Remus walked back in and sat down in the same sofa as before. And Remus lectured him. At least he never drank in front of Harry.

Ignoring his best friend, Remus simply turned to Harry and said, "Alright, cub, please do continue."

"…Alright," Harry said, looking slightly uncertain as he looked from one guardian to the other, utterly confused as to what had just happened.

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Sirius said, wiping the smirk off his face and storing away this information for later use, or, to be more accurate, blackmail. "Just continue."

"Do I -" Harry started but was interrupted quickly.

"Yes," both of his guardians said in unison, knowing very well what was about to come from their charges mouth. It certainly didn't do anything to calm them down.

"Fine," Harry said sulkily. "It was stupid Lockhart. He decided that with the attacks – Colin had been attacked after the Quidditch Match – he was going to start a dueling club."

"Well, that hardly seems like a stupid idea," Remus said, brow furrowing. "Actually it seems like a very good idea. You have no idea how hard Sirius, James and I tried to get a dueling club when we were in school. Professor Dumbledore ended up conceding to us in our seventh year because of the war and everything, but as far as I can remember they didn't really do one after that. Professor Dumbledore doesn't really like to encourage dueling."

"Remus, this is Lockhart," Harry explained patiently, rolling his eyes. "If he can turn the Defense class into a bloody theatre about him then what do you think he did to a Dueling club?"

"A theatre?" Remus asked, eyebrows raised, "Well, that does explain why so many people were behind in Defense Against the Dark Art when I was teaching."

"Pompous git," Sirius snarled, conveniently forgetting that he had never actually met the man. "I mean, really, did he not realize that my Pronglet – and everyone else of course, would need to protect themselves?"

"Apparently not," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, the Dueling Club… it was a disaster. He got Snape to help out – actually, Ron and I were hoping that they'd finish each other off," Harry added, with a wistful smile. It really would have been far better if they had.

"Snape and Lockhart?" Sirius said, "Ruddy hell, I would have just turned right back around."

"Probably would have been a better idea," Harry agreed. "But no, we braved it. Lockhart and Snape had a duel where Snape made a fool out of the peacock."

"Only time I will ever say that Snape did a good thing," Sirius said dryly. _Although, I do like the peacock idea…_ he mused inwardly, tuning Harry out, sure that nothing else interesting would happen. However, he was brought back into reality when the word 'Malfoy' permeated his thoughts.

"Wait, what about Malfoy?" he asked, interrupting Harry in the middle of a sentence.

"Snape partnered me and him together," Harry said, sounding uncharacteristically bitter.

"Him and me, or Malfoy and I," Remus corrected absently, making Harry roll his eyes. That was the worst thing about having a former professor as a teacher… Remus seemed to constantly correct his grammar.

"Do I want to know what happened?" Sirius asked wryly, shaking his head with a sigh. He was almost glad he didn't actually live through this when it happened… he would have ended up with grey hairs. He had actually found some a few weeks ago, right after the third task. He had not been pleased, to say the least. Remus had been about ready to hex him after nearly four hours of complaining and saying that he really wasn't _that_ old.

"No, you don't," Harry said without hesitation. "In fact, let's just forget this and go out for a fly…"

"Nice try, Harry," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "But we're still going to listen to the rest of this story, and if I recall correctly you're still grounded."

"Just continue, Harry," Remus said, before Harry could retort Sirius' statement. He wanted this over and done with so that he could breathe again and be sure no… troll or something had gone near his cub.

"Malfoy and I were called up for a demonstration duel," Harry started reluctantly. He didn't want to have to tell them that he was a parselmouth. He did not want to see their reactions.

Sirius growled, sounding rather reminiscent of his animagus form, just knowing that it had something to do with Snape. That man would end up replacing Dumbledore as number one on that list if he wasn't careful.

"What happened? Did that git do anything to you?" Sirius asked, softening his glare as he turned to look at Harry.

"Malfoy conjured a snake – using a spell that Snape told him," Harry added, wanting to add in that extra tidbit. He really had been mad at Malfoy and Snape at that time, knowing it was their fault that he was considered to be the heir of Slytherin. He really wouldn't mind if Snape finally got some sort of comeuppance.

Sirius didn't say anything to that, but he certainly looked murderous. But, that look quickly changed to a concerned one when he realized that a snake had been set on his little, defenseless godson. "Wait, were you okay? Did it hurt you?" he said frantically, grabbing Harry and examining, ignoring the fact that it really had been over two years ago.

"I'm fine Sirius," Harry said exasperatedly, "I wasn't in any danger from it. Lockhart cast a spell at it which made it angrier but it went towards a Hufflepuff student – Justin."

"Poor kid," Sirius said, immediately relaxing now that he knew Harry had been in no danger from the snake. He was however, still slightly tense and one look at the werewolf showed he was the same, and for most likely the same reason – that idiot Lockhart. If the snake had directed its anger towards Harry… well, Lockhart would certainly never win the 'Most Charming Smile Award' again.

Forcing himself to sound calm, Sirius asked, "So what happened?"

Here Harry hesitated, trying to work out exactly what to say.

"Harry? What is it? What happened?" Sirius asked, sitting up again, worry escalating at Harry's hesitation. What if the snake really had attacked him?

"I told the snake to get away from Justin," Harry mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

"You told the snake?" Sirius asked, sounding confused.

"You spoke Parseltongue," Remus said, sounding sympathetic. He understood that Harry must have been very upset that his secret had been revealed to the entire school. At least that had never happened to him.

"How did you know?" Harry asked, sounding surprised as he blinked owlishly up at him.

"I heard it mentioned at Hogwarts," Remus said dismissively. "I also heard that it made people persecute you and call you the Heir of Slytherin."

"Yeah, and it didn't really help that I was the first one on the scene at the next attack," Harry added bitterly.

"Wait, what?" Sirius exclaimed. "They thought that my little baby was the Heir of Slytherin? How could they?"

"Hang on, you don't hate me for having an evil ability?" Harry interrupted, eyes wide.

"Hate you? Harry, how could you think that?" Sirius exclaimed. He turned around and enveloped Harry into a bear hug, squeezing the boy tightly. How his godson could ever think that Sirius was capable of hating him he'd never know. It was probably those stupid Dursleys ruining his godsons self esteem. He wondered if Moony would mind if they went to Surrey on the next full moon.

"Alright, so what happened next?" Remus gently prodded. Harry noticed that Remus had moved forward slightly and was holding Harry's small hand and rubbing his thumb over it.

"Right, the Polyjuice Potion," Harry sighed.

"And before you ask, yes you have to," Sirius said, looking at his godson fondly as he relaxed back against the sofa. Only his eyes betrayed that he was furious about the injustices against his godson.

"Well, it was finished on Christmas Day so we decided to go ahead with the plan then as all of us, and Malfoy also, had stayed over the holidays," Harry explained, looking a good deal calmer now that the Parselmouth conversation was over. But then again, that also meant the Basilisk conversation was beginning to near.

"I can't believe that you actually went through with that plan," Sirius said, shaking his head.

"Oh, like you wouldn't have done it at school," Harry retorted.

"…That's neither here nor there," Sirius said after a pause.

"Just continue, Harry," Remus said in a laughing tone, earning himself a glare from his best friend.

"So, we got the hairs for the Polyjuice Potion," Harry started, glad that he shouldn't really get in trouble over this. "And we managed to get Crabbe and Goyle – they were the ones Ron and I were turning into – to eat some enchanted cupcakes to make them fall asleep so they wouldn't interrupt us. And then we took the potion."

"Where?" Remus asked curiously. "I mean, it had to be somewhere where no one would accidentally run into it."

Harry blushed, making Sirius perk up with interest. He mumbled something that even Remus' enhanced hearing couldn't pick up. At their looks Harry groaned and spoke up, "The second floor girl's bathroom, alright?"

"The one haunted by Moaning Myrtle, right?" Sirius clarified, lips twitching as he exchanged a glance with Remus.

"Yes," Harry muttered, glaring at them both.

"Alright, never mind Moaning Myrtle, Harry," Remus said, taking pity on the boy. "So, did you manage to get into the Slytherin Common Room?"

"Yeah, we did. But after all of that hard work, we didn't get any information!" Harry exclaimed, now sounding annoyed. "Well, I suppose that's not quite true," he amended, "we found out that Malfoy wasn't opening the chamber and that the last person who had had done so fifty years ago and had been expelled. Oh, and we found out that Malfoy Manor has a hidden chamber where Lucius Malfoy hides all his Dark Arts objects. Ron was thrilled and wrote to his Dad straight away."

"Well, that doesn't seem too bad of a waste of time," Sirius said, smiling. "And I have to say, kiddo, that I really am impressed that you guys pulled it off."

Remus, on the other hand was frowning. "Hang on one second, Harry, why didn't you mention Hermione at all? I'm sure she also wanted to go and interrogate Mr. Malfoy."

"Yeah, well, see, Hermione kinda put the wrong hair in her potion… and she might have grown a tail, and furry ears that didn't wear off," Harry admitted, smiling sheepishly.

"Sounds like I spoke too soon," Sirius said after a moments of silence. "Poor Hermione. Was she alright?"

"Yeah, she was fine after a few weeks in the Hospital Wing. And, of course, a get well card from Lockhart," he added, rolling his eyes.

"Git," Sirius said absently. "Well, so long as you lot were alright. You were alright weren't you? No little secret that you decided to keep hidden?" he added suspiciously.

"No," Harry said, "I swear. That's all that happened then."

Sirius searched Harry for a moment and then nodded. "Alright then. So what happened after the Polyjuice? Did you conceded defeat and give up?" Sirius asked, the last part in a hopeful tone.

"Sorry, but no," Harry winced.

"Damned curiosity streak," Sirius muttered shaking his head with a sigh. "Putting my poor baby in danger."

"So, Harry, what did you try next in your little investigation?" Remus asked, wanting to cut off Padfoot before he got into a full blown rant about his 'poor little baby.'

"Well, Ron and I found a diary that was from the time when the Chamber was opened the first time around," Harry explained.

"Where did you find it?" Remus asked curiously.

"In Moaning Myrtles bathroom," Harry answered easily. "But, it was empty, nobody had written in it, except for a name. Tom Marvolo Riddle." Harry was unable to keep the hatred out of his voice as he said the name, but it seemed as though his guardians did not hear it.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," Remus mused, looking off into space, "that sounds familiar…"

"Yeah, it does," Sirius agreed, brow furrowing as he thought about it. "I feel like I've seen that name written somewhere before…"

"Ron thought the same thing," Harry said. "He worked out that Riddle had received a Special Awards for Services to the School… fifty years ago."

"And you made the connection that Riddle had perhaps caught the person that opened the chamber," Remus said, nodding his head. But he couldn't get rid of the feeling that he'd heard the name somewhere else.

"That explains why I recognized it, then," Sirius said, relaxing once more. "I had so many detentions in that trophy room."

"Yeah, well, a little bit later I accidentally spilt my ink on the diary and it just absorbed right in," Harry said, neatly skipping over the part with Ginny's valentine to him. "I tried writing to it, you know like 'hello' and stuff and it, or should I say 'Tom' wrote back."

"That's strange," Remus said, "I can't really think of any spell that could cause that to happen…"

"And that means danger," Sirius added, "Harry James, please tell me that you went to Dumbledore, or _something_ just not write back to an object that was clearly dangerous."

"It's clearly dangerous _now,_ now that I have more knowledge of the wizarding world," Harry pointed out tersely, glaring at his godfather. The effect was rather ruined by the small pout on his face. "But, I was twelve then and had only been in the magical world for little over a year. For all I knew, there was a perfectly normal spell to trap memories into a diary."

"Point taken," Sirius conceded, tweaking at Harry's nose to stop him from glaring. It worked, and Harry went cross eyed for a moment before continuing on from where he had left off.

"So, Riddle and I talked a little bit and then he offered to show me his capture of the person who had supposedly opened the chamber," Harry explained.

"Alright, there is definitely no spell to make that possible," Remus declared.

"You did it, didn't you," Sirius said, sounding defeated.

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding slowly. "I hesitated… but yeah, in the end I did it."

"And, what did you find out," Remus prompted, staunchly ignoring the little voice in his head that said Harry might have gotten hurt.

"I ended up in a memory at Hogwarts, fifty years back. I saw the Headmaster, Dippet, and a heaps younger Dumbledore," Harry started, "I also found out that Riddle was an orphan. A half-blood orphan. His mother was a witch and his father a muggle."

"As interesting as that is, I would rather hear about who was caught opening the chamber," Sirius said.

"Oh, trust me, you will find his parentage very interesting later on," Harry laughed. "Anyway, I followed Riddle down to the dungeons and we waited for what seemed like hours. And then I heard a voice, and it was telling something to go away, to get out of the castle…"

"The Heir," Remus said, exchanging a glance with Sirius.

"That's what I thought," Harry said, "But then I noticed it was Hagrid."

"Hagrid," Sirius asked incredulous. "But… you're joking. There's no way it was Hagrid… I mean, I know he loves dangerous creatures but there's no way Hagrid would set them on muggleborns."

"I always did wonder why Hagrid was expelled," Remus said, "But I sincerely doubt that Hagrid was actually guilty… perhaps he may have found a way to open the chamber and get to the 'monster within' but he would not set them on other students. I sincerely doubt he could even find a way to open the chamber."

"Ron, Hermione, I were kind of conflicted about that as well," Harry said, rolling his neck from side to side in order to get rid of the stiffness in his neck. "In the end, we decided we'd ask him about it only if another attack occurred."

"And?" Sirius asked, eyebrow raised.

"Nothing happened for a month or two," Harry said, eyes clouding over slightly at the next memory. "Until our next Quidditch match."

"What did that house-elf bewitch the Bludgers again?" Sirius asked. "If he did, I'll hex the little bugger, hurting my baby."

"No, Dobby didn't hex the Bludgers," Harry interrupted rolling his eyes. "As a matter of fact, we didn't even get up into the air. McGonagall came down just as we were about to go onto the Quidditch Pitch and told us that the match was cancelled."

"What? How can she cancel Quidditch?" Sirius ranted immediately, sounding strangely similar to Oliver Wood, "I mean it's Quidditch. The essence of life!"

"Why, what happened?" Remus' quiet voice interrupted Sirius' rant on Quidditch. Harry was being strangely quiet, he would have expected him to also be ranting about the unfairness of it all.

"There was another attack," Harry told them, slightly hoarsely, "A Ravenclaw Prefect… and Hermione."

"Oh, Harry," Sirius breathed in, wrapping an arm around Harry and pulling him close in a one-armed hug.

"Things got worse after that, security tightening and everything," Harry said, leaning against his godfather's chest, nestled into the crook of his arm. "Although, at least people stopped believing I was Slytherins heir," he added positively.

"How they could ever suspect my baby is beyond me," Sirius muttered.

"Ron and I decided to visit Hagrid, see if he knew anything," Harry continued to explain. "So we snuck out using my Dad's old cloak."

"Following in the footsteps of the Marauders," Sirius chuckled. "Although, I really would prefer it if you did so when there isn't some sort of monster attacking people," Sirius added, slightly scolding.

Harry nodded dutifully.

"Did Hagrid have anything interesting to say?" Remus asked, warily, thinking that it seemed as though they had gone slightly too long without something ridiculously dangerous happening.

"He didn't really get a chance to tell us anything," Harry told him. "Only a few minutes after Ron and I, the Minister and Professor Dumbledore came down. Fudge had orders to get Hagrid to Azkaban."

Sirius sucked in a breath sharply, "He what? That incompetent buffoon!"

"Poor Hagrid," Remus said, wincing sympathetically. He could never imagine having to go to Azkaban. He had no idea how Sirius could have survived so many years of it.

"Yeah, and that's not all," Harry said grimly, "Lucius Malfoy showed up and said that the school governors had 'decided' that Dumbledore should be suspended."

"That's…" Sirius struggled to find the words. "Completely idiotic. As much of a stupid old goat Dumbledore is, there is still the fact that he was most likely the reason that more muggleborns hadn't been attacked." Sirius voice seemed to have a grudging tone behind it.

"Bribery, I'm sure," Remus said, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, well, I'll show Lucius what he can do with his bribery," Sirius said sharply, shaking his head, thinking of some of the better plans in his head.

"So, I suppose you really weren't able to get any information from Hagrid then," Remus said to Harry, ignoring his revenge seeking best friend.

"We got one little bit," Harry said, "Follow the Spiders."

"Follow the spiders," Sirius repeated flatly. "And, you of course ignored this information as you knew that Hagrid has a fondness for large and dangerous creatures."

"Um…" Harry said, stalling as he steeled himself for this next part. "Well, actually we did follow the spiders… to the… F… Forbidden Forest," he let out the last part quickly, though not quite quickly enough judging the pallor or his guardians skin.

_Yep,_ thought Remus weakly, _A bit too long without something stupidly dangerous._ He could have really used some more of that potion right then, he thought as he kept a close count on his breathing to prevent himself from hyperventilating again.

"Harry James Potter, what in the world were you thinking? It is called the Forbidden Forest for a reason!" Sirius exclaimed. "All of those dangerous creatures just waiting to attack my baby!"

"Hypocrite," Harry muttered under his breath, recalling all of Sirius' tales of adventures in the forest under the moonlight.

"What," Harry said at Sirius' stern look. "It's true! You went around the forest every month!"

"That is completely besides the point," Sirius said stiffly.

"Why," Harry asked.

"Because you're my baby, and you are far too little and innocent to go gallivanting about the forest," Sirius told him firmly.

"Can we please just finish this story before I have a heart attack imagining all the things that could have happened?" Remus asked, holding a hand to his head and inwardly counting to try and keep himself calm. _…89, 90, 91, 92…_

"Good idea," Sirius said approvingly, "But Harry, you can add an extra week to your grounding."

Harry pouted and Sirius had to look away so that he didn't just retract his punishment right then and there.

"Alright, we followed the spiders. They led us into this hollow thing in the forbidden forest where the spiders are absolutely _huge._ Ron was terrified. They could talk and everything as well. We found out later that they were called 'Acromantula'."

"There are Acromantula in Britain?" Remus asked, sounding surprised. "Wait, you were _near_ an Acromantula? What in the world was Hagrid thinking… those things are dangerous… does he have any idea what could have happened to my cub?"

Harry sighed, he should have known that Remus would also start rambling about his little baby/cub as well.

In an effort to interrupt it, he continued on, dreading the next topic and already trying to find another way around mentioning it. "We talked to Aragog – the Head Acromantula – a bit, and he did tell us some decent information… and then they tried to eat us."

"What!" came Sirius' panicked exclamation. Remus was watching him with wide eyes.

"Don't worry, we were fine," Harry said hastily, "the car helped us out, it became feral in the forest apparently and it drove us both out of there."

"Don't worry," Sirius said incredulously, pulling Harry into a tight hug. "Nearly get yourself killed, and tell us not to worry."

Remus was holding Harry's hand tightly, and was giving Harry a look that, had he been in school, he would have interpreted it as a 'you're about to get detention' look. He didn't know if he wanted to know what it could mean now.

After a few moments of silence where they could get their bearing and Remus caught his breath and calmed his heart down, Sirius asked Harry what information Aragog had given them.

"He told us that the last time the Chamber was opened, someone had died… in a bathroom," Harry said simply.

"Moaning Myrtle haunts a bathroom," Remus said slowly, eyes narrowed as he made the connection.

"We thought the exact same thing," Harry said.

"Oh for goodness' sakes," Sirius groaned quietly, under his breath.

"Yeah, Ron and I kept up the investigation," Harry admitted with a sheepish smile.

"But after that…" Harry trailed off, remembering the utter terror of that day. "Well, we tried to sneak off to see Myrtle – "

"How in the world did you keep on sneaking off, with doubled security and everything," Sirius exclaimed, interrupting Harry's sentence.

"Lockhart," Harry said plainly.

"Of course, stupid git, doesn't try to keep my baby safe," Sirius muttered vindictively under his breath. Now though, it seemed as though Remus was muttering something similar under his breath.

"But we got caught by McGonagall," Harry said, interrupting the two of them.

"Good!" Sirius exclaimed, surprising himself. "What did she do?"

"Nothing," Harry answered. "I told her that we wanted to sneak off to see Hermione and she bought it. Gave us permission to be outside of class."

After a moments pause, Sirius said, "Kiddo, I don't know whether to be impressed or annoyed."

"Well, it turned out to be a good thing," Harry said. "Since it turned out that before she got attacked, Hermione managed to figure out what the monster was."

"And she wrote it down somewhere," Remus completed the thought.

"So, don't keep us in suspense, what was it?" Sirius asked, dreading the answer.

Harry hesitated a moment before answering… "It was a… snake."

"A snake," Remus asked flatly with an eyebrow raised.

"A snake that petrified the students," Sirius asked doubtfully. "Are you positive, Harry?"

"Of course I am," Harry said, looking at Sirius with his puppy dog eyes, congratulating himself on managing to work out such a good way for this part of his story without actually having to lie.

"Well, it would have to be quite a dangerous snake to be able to kill a student," Remus said, still sounding doubtful. Sirius had, of course, melted the moment Harry turned his green eyes on him.

"A bit, yeah," Harry agreed before quickly changing the subject, lest Remus work it out. "We were going to tell the teacher what we found out but then something else happened."

Sirius, who had beamed when Harry mentioned going to the teachers, immediately frowned. Remus also had an abrupt change of emotions; his heart lifting and sinking incredibly fast.

"What happened?" Sirius asked, his heart heavy, somehow knowing this would end with his godson against the snake.

"Ginny Weasley was taken into the chamber," Harry said simply.

Remus drew in a sharp breath, "Oh no… poor Arthur and Molly…"

Harry nodded quietly, "They were talking about closing the school. Ron and I decided to try and save Ginny."

Sirius opened his mouth but closed it again quickly. As mad as he was that his baby had been in danger, he couldn't scold Harry for helping a friend. Besides, the monster was only a snake, right?

"We ran into Lockhart," Harry continued, without prompting for once, "And he was planning on running away. We took his wand and forced him to go with us. When we got down to the bathroom, we talked to Moaning Myrtle and she told us about how she died. Ron noticed a carving of a snake on the sink and I opened it, using Parseltongue."

"You managed to open the Chamber of Secrets," Remus breathed in, closing his eyes and willing his heart to keep beating.

"We pushed Lockhart down first."

"Good boy," Sirius said, ruffling Harry's hair.

Harry gave a small smile. "But then, after we had walked a bit in the tunnel we had appeared in, there was a small scuffle and Lockhart managed to get Ron's wand. He was going to Obliviate us, but the spell backfired and hit and the wall collapsed."

"That stupid git," Sirius hissed, "That… that… I have no words," Sirius finally said, eyes narrowed in a glare and he promised retribution upon Lockhart when he found him.

Remus had collapsed back onto the chair and had his eyes closed as he waved for Harry to continue.

"I was stuck on the other side the wall," Harry explained. "So I told Ron to try and get rid of the rubble while I kept going to find Ginny."

"You found her," Sirius stated.

"Yeah – with Riddle," Harry answered.

"Wait a moment, Riddle?" Remus asked, sounding incredulous.

"Yes, he managed to get out of the diary by stealing Ginny's life force," Harry said sounding bitter and angry as he recounted this part.

"He had been possessing Ginny into opening the chamber and setting the ba – monster on the students."

"So he framed Hagrid all of those years ago," Remus realized. "But why?"

"And then he told me, or rather showed me, that he left behind the name Tom Marvolo Riddle and replaced it with the name Lord Voldemort," Harry said, unknowingly using a dramatic voice.

"Voldemort?" Remus whispered incredulously. "Oh, Merlin…" He had to thump his chest a few times to get his heart going… his poor cub!

"Voldemort's a half-blood," Sirius realized. "Damn, that's ironic. But, Harry, please tell me that you ran the hell out of there."

"I didn't really have a chance," Harry said. "Riddle called the snake, and Fawkes came to me with the Sorting Hat."

"Alright, Fawkes I can see being a help, but the Sorting Hat? Why on earth would you need that?" Remus asked disbelievingly. His cub was in mortal danger and he got a hat?

"What did you do," Sirius asked, not able to keep his fear and worry out of his voice.

"Fawkes blinded the ba – snake, and I put on the hat and asked for help. It answered by giving me Gryffindors Sword," Harry said.

"Oh, thank Merlin," Remus said, conceding that maybe the hat wasn't too bad.

"And I stabbed the snake and the diary," Harry added.

"And you didn't get hurt at all?" Sirius asked, looking at Harry carefully.

"Well, I might have gotten a small scratch," Harry admitted.

But before Sirius could say anything, their floo flared up and Hermione's head appeared in the fire.

"Hello Harry, Sirius, Professor Lupin," she said politely before turning to Harry to ask, "Harry, is everything alright? I talked to Ron and he seemed horribly worried about. He said that you were talking about your school years with Sirius and Remus…?"

"Yes, we were," Remus confirmed, who was still counting in an effort to stay calm.

Looking at the looks on their faces, she asked, "Alright, but are you sure everything is alright? I haven't seen you this unsettled since you got that Valentine in second year."

Sirius turned to Harry with a raised eyebrow that clearly conveyed, 'Valentine?'

He turned to Hermione and said, "It really is fine, Hermione, Harry just finished telling us about his second year."

"Oh, the basilisk?" she asked, wincing. "Then I'm not surprised you look so odd, that really was horrible. I mean, if Fawkes hadn't have been there then Harry would definitely have died. That was absolutely horrible, I still get shivery when I think about it!"

Remus and Sirius appeared to be have frozen.

Harry groaned and buried his face in a nearby pillow. What did he do to deserve such friends?

Hermione, showing the intellect that she was famous for, obviously realized that she had something and decided to leave and write a letter to Harry later demanding details. And an answer as to why on earth he was tucked into a blanket in the middle of summer.

Sirius immediately turned to Harry with a stern look. Remus was starting to hyperventilate again.

"Alright, so maybe it was a basilisk… and it might have been more of a bite then a scratch," Harry admitted, wincing. "But it really was fine! I mean, Fawkes healed me and everything!"

Sirius and Remus stared at him.

There was silence for a good five minutes after Harry finished speaking. Sirius was just staring into space dumbly, his grip on Harry unrelenting as he tried to digest the story.

Remus appeared to be in shock. Harry was looking from one guardian to the other tentatively, trying to gauge their reactions and whether he was going to get grounded. If he was, he was so going to get his revenge on Ron and Hermione. They just had to floo _today._ They would have believed the story about the snake otherwise. He would have said the Headmaster also, but he guessed that Sirius would get his revenge for him.

After another few minutes of silence, Remus stood up calmly. "Harry, I've left a plate in the refrigerator. I expect to see all of it eaten by the time I get back," he said, walking over to the fireplace.

"Moony?" Sirius asked, curiosity in his voice. He was wondering why on earth Remus was going somewhere when they should be lecturing Harry about not doing stupid, dangerous stunts. And on not lying to them also.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked, looking surprised.

Remus didn't answer. He simply grabbed a handful of floo powder and, after throwing it in the fireplace, said, "St Mungo's Cardiology Ward."

 


	10. Revenge

“Why, exactly, is Harry flying around on his Firebolt out there?” Remus asked as he walked back into the kitchen, propping the door open.

Sirius, who was sitting at the kitchen table mumbling to himself as he modified the parchment in front of him with his quill, took a sip of coffee before replying. “Because he asked and I said yes.”

“Really? Because I could have sworn he was grounded,” Remus responded pointedly, pouring a cup of coffee for himself. “For longer than a week,” he added, knowing that Sirius would probably use the excuse that Harry hadn’t been allowed on his broom for the last week since his two guardians had discovered what he had really been getting up to at school.

“Well, I mean, it’s summer, and it’s a one-off thing...” Sirius trailed off, refusing to keep eye contact with his best friend.

Remus sighed and said, “He gave you those puppy dog eyes again, didn’t he?”

“What? No!” Sirius replied defensively. “I just thought he deserved some fresh air, is all.”

“Right,” Remus muttered doubtfully, knowing that Sirius had not yet failed to cave when Harry did the puppy-dog eyes. “What are you writing, anyway?” he asked, curiosity overcoming him as Sirius had not put down his quill once during this conversation.

“Nothing important,” Sirius responded vaguely.

Remus narrowed his eyes at the dog animagus, his years of friendship letting him realize that the look Sirius had on his face right now meant that he was plotting something. Casually leaning forward as though to get the sugar on the table, he changed direction at the last moment and instead grabbed the parchment.

Ignoring the squawk of protest from his best friend, Remus skimmed the parchment in his hands, his eyebrows getting steadily higher the further down the list he got. “You sent Harry outside so he wouldn’t know what you were planning, didn’t you?” Remus said accusingly.

“Maybe,” Sirius muttered, unsuccessfully making a grab for the parchment.

“You do realize that Harry still has three years of schooling left at Hogwarts and, as interesting as it may be, turning Snape into a fluffy pink gerbil, setting him loose in the forbidden forest and telling Hagrid to rescue him and use him as a specimen for Care of Magical Creatures may not be the best way to make sure those last three years go well.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to tell him it was me,” Sirius said to him, rolling his eyes.

“Who else would come up with something like this?” Remus replied, snorting as he handed the parchment over.

“Fine,” Sirius sighed, grabbing the parchment and scribbling down: ‘Proceed with plan after Harry’s graduation.’ “Now I have to come up with something else for him,” he whined.

“Actually, I’ve already got a potion brewing,” Remus admitted somewhat sheepishly. “Tonks suggested it to me when we went to a bar after our guard duty together. Apparently it was something she always wanted to try on Snape but never had the guts to actually go through with.”

“Really,” Sirius mused. “Alright, then you can take care of Snape, although that does mean I have to find something different for Hagrid...”

“You can’t, he’s on a mission for the Order, remember?” Remus told him. “You just take care of Dumbledore and the Dursleys, and I’ll make another potion for McGonagall – make sure she knows to pay closer attention to what my little cub is up to.”

 ------------------

Harry walked into the kitchen, windswept but still feeling deliriously happy. The last week had been immensely boring, as Sirius had held true to his being grounded (though thankfully, he had somewhat relented on the curfew issue). The intermittent lectures weren’t the most enjoyable summer activity either. So when Sirius had suggested allowing him a short reprieve from the conditions of his grounding, Harry had jumped at the chance and had not even considered that Sirius might have an ulterior motive.

“Perfect timing Harry, I was just finishing lunch,” Remus greeted with a smile.

Harry’s returning smile was somewhat fixed – his werewolf guardian seemed determined to make sure Harry gained weight before returning to Hogwarts. Harry didn’t think he’d ever been plied with so much healthy food before (at the Dursleys, they hadn’t cared what he ate, whilst at Hogwarts he generally avoided most of the vegetables that he disliked.)

“There are some letters on the table for you, by the way,” Remus added, gesturing towards the two envelopes lying next to the fruit bowl.

“Thanks,” Harry replied, sitting down and grabbing them, knowing they would be from Ron and Hermione. Smirking slightly, he opened the one that had Ron’s messy scrawl on it first.

 _Alright, mate, how the hell did you do it?!? You know, I was actually going to apologize for getting you in trouble but now? After you changed everything in my room from Chudley Cannons merchandise to Falmouth Falcons?! How could you? You know the Falcons they’re my least favourite team,_ and _their constantly making fun of the Cannons!_

_Not to mention the fact that Mum is convinced I’m doing illegal magic outside of school. She made Dad give me a whole lecture on responsibility, and they’re making me do all my summer homework now._

_You’d better prepare, ‘cause I am so getting you back for this!_

Harry stifled his giggles, keenly aware of the fact that Remus was still in the room. He had taken the necessary potions from the werewolfs office, and had performed some illegal underage magic of his own to pull it off, but irritating Ron after what his best friend had spilled was well worth it.

Grinning, he opened Hermione’s letter, fully expecting to see another indignant rant.

_Alright, first of all, I’m sorry for getting you into trouble. I did warn you to be careful what to tell Sirius and Professor Lupin._

_Second of all: IT’S NOT FUNNY! I’ve barely managed to get any of my homework done, so tell Hedwig to bring back ALL of the textbooks she took from my room. I promise I won’t even yell at her for dropping my homework in the pond. Just give me my bloody books back!!!_

Harry couldn’t help but chuckle at that one, apparently being deprived of her magic books had made Hermione somewhat hysterical.

“Ron and Hermione write something amusing?” Remus asked curiously, placing down a full plate in front of Harry.

“Yep,” Harry said, not offering details. “Hey, where’s Sirius?” he asked, just realizing that his other guardian had not joined them for the meal.

“Hm? Oh, he just had to take care of some business,” Remus answered casually.

\--------------

“Alright, so you both know what to do?” Sirius double-checked with his partners in crime. His response was a fervent nod from a wide-eyed house-elf, and a quiet trill from an amused phoenix. “Good. Get to it.”

Dobby disappeared with a loud crack, more than happy to get away from the man who seemed slightly insane. Sirius had yelled at him for some time, somehow managing to both tell him off and thank him at the same time for his actions towards Harry over the last few years. The man claimed that this potion that Dobby was meant to slip into Professor Snapes drink would also be of service to the boy wizard. Dobby wasn’t completely sure of the truthfulness of that statement, but if it kept the crazed ex-convict away from him, and allow him to continue to help Harry, then Dobby would gladly do what the wizard asked of him.

Fawkes also disappeared, although he did so in a mass of flames. He then reappeared upstairs in his companions office. Dumbledore was relaxing in his chair, reading the newest _Transfiguration Today_ journal. Fawkes fluffed up his wings as he warbled desperately, effectively communicating with his companion that there was trouble.

Dumbledore looked up sharply, grabbing his wand as he asked, “What’s the matter, Fawkes?”

The phoenix trilled a response which made Dumbledore leap up. “The thestrals? Are you sure?”

The phoenix trilled back in the positive, and then disappeared once more; Dumbledore presumed to the pack of thestrals that Hagrid had left in his care. The old headmaster cursed under his breath, quickly rushing down the steps. Thestrals were temperamental creatures – that was why so few were domesticated. Dumbledore had had several problems with them already, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that another had arisen. He was so focused on getting down to the forest so that whatever problem would not get out of hand that he didn’t even notice the slight breeze that indicated someone invisible was entering his office.

\------------

“Oh my, I do hope Professor Dumbledore is alright,” Madame Pomfrey said, sounding startled at the sight of the headmaster running full pelt towards the forest.

“Probably having problems with the thestrals again,” Professor McGonagall said dismissively. The two staff members were heading down to Hogsmeade for a break from being in the castle. What with the beginning of the war, Professor Dumbledore had requested that as many teachers stay at the castle over the summer as possible, so that they could improve security before the student returned in September. Although most of the teachers were content to remain in the place that was, for most of them, their home, they did require a change of scenery every now and then, and so went down to the village every few days.

Chatting amicably, the walk down to Hogsmeade did not take long, and they soon found themselves in the vicinity of the Three Broomsticks. Agreeing to see if their colleagues were there, they stepped into the pub and encountered a sight neither woman would have ever expected. Judging by the stupefied looks on most of their fellow staff members, not to mention the reactions of the patrons and staff of the popular bar, it was just as unexpected for them.

Severus Snape – a self-proclaimed bastard – was dancing in the middle of the room. And singing.

“The hills are alive with the sound of music,” the Slytherin belted out, dramatically swaying around. “With songs they have sung for a thousand years...”

After several more minutes of the dancing and the –admittedly good – singing, Minerva managed to recover from her shock. “What in the world?!” the transfiguration teacher demanded, her voice uncharacteristically shaken as she recovered from the shock.

“Minerva,” Severus yelled, running towards her and falling to his knees in front of her. He switched songs seamlessly, now singing “I’ll be your dream, I’ll be your wish, I’ll be your fantasy, I’ll be your hope, I’ll be your love, I’ll be everything you need. I’ll love you more with every breath truly madly deeply.”

Minerva found herself turning scarlet, truly mortified for the first time since her school days, especially as her sharp ears picked up comments from some gossiping patrons who had not guessed that the potions teacher was under some kind of spell.

“Severus,” Minerva shouted sharply, trying to get him to snap out of it, but his only response was to grab hold of her and drag her around, trying to get her to dance as he continued to sing to her.

“I wanna stand with you on a mountain, I wanna bathe with you in the sea, I wanna lay like this forever,” Severus sang out loud, twirling and performing some truly impressive feats with Minerva in his arms, including, at one point, throwing her up in the air, making her squawk in protest and finally breaking through the astonishment on the other professors.

Though not to stop it from happening, Minerva noted peevishly as she kept trying to dislodge Severus’ grip while the Hogwarts staff collapsed into laughter at the sight of the distinguished deputy headmistress being serenaded by cold Potions master.

\--------------

Sirius smirked as he bounded up the steps of the huge glass building, imagining all the mayhem that was most likely going on at Hogwarts. He had to try and get someones memory of what was going on with Minerva and Snape – if even Tonks hadn’t had the nerve to do it whilst at school then it had to be good.

He just wished that he could have let Snape know why this was happening to him. Although, despite Moony’s thoughts, he had little doubt that the Slytherin would guess who was behind it all, his best friend was right in saying that it would be a lot more difficult to prove then had he gone with his original gerbil plan. Still, he’d gotten revenge on Severus for what the man had done to his poor, innocent little godson, and all he had to do was make sure that Harry told him every little thing that Severus did so that he could monitor the situation and make sure it didn’t get out of hand next year.

At least with Minerva, he could let her know why he was getting revenge on her without fearing that she would bestow her retribution on Harry. Before leaving the castle he had left a Howler on her desk informing her of what he had done and why, giving her a piece of his mind about what he thought of her caretaking of his godson. He knew that she would have quite a lot to say to him at the next order meeting, but at the same time he knew she would take his criticisms to heart. And hopefully, that meant she would look after Harry better next year.

Dumbledore... well, that old coot deserved everything he had coming to him, and Sirius had no intention of letting Harry attend Hogwarts next year until Dumbledore proved to him that it was completely safe, and also provided him with a room near Gryffindor tower from where he could make sure his baby was alright. (His original plan had been to go to Hogwarts as Harry’s pet dog but Remus had said that Harry would likely never speak to him again if he so much as tried something like that and Sirius, not willing to take the risk, had relented.

The ex-convict diverted his attention from his inner musings as he stopped in front of the large board which proclaimed what was housed on each floor of the building. Having been considered one of the most infamous wizards in the wizarding world for over a decade meant he managed to adeptly ignore the stares he was getting from the everybody around him.

Singing loudly to himself, he entered the elevator, smirking as nobody else came on with him. Getting off at the correct floor he entered the office, completely ignoring the spluttering secretary. Stopping at the desk which held the muggle compu-thingy, Sirius discreetly took out his wand, though he knew the secretary was likely calling security at the moment.

Thankfully, Tonks and Kingsley had taught him several spells that could be used on the muggle machine, as they had been taught during auror training. Sirius had not been offered the same training, as muggles had apparently not relied quite so heavily on the information sharing boxes back then. He was pretty sure that he had gotten it right though, as the box glowed slightly in response to his muttered spells and wand movement.

He also moved across to the filing cabinet and with a tap of his wand, the papers housed inside switched around to a completely different order.

Sirius looked around the place slightly regretfully – he would have liked to have done a lot more, but unfortunately he didn’t want to make it obvious that what had happened was magical. He wasn’t sure how much the Dursley’s knew about magic and whether they would attribute this bout of bad luck to their nephews guardians, but just in case, Sirius and Remus had agreed to keep the magic to a minimum. Thankfully, there were other ways to ruin a muggles life.

“Excuse me, sir, we would request that you vacate these premises,” the large security man said, politely but firmly.

Sirius turned around to face grinning happily. It wasn’t completely fake either – the mans reactions to Sirius purple hair, hot pink baggy jeans, fluorescent orange sweater with red polka dots was certainly worth the embarrassment of wearing such horrific clothes.

Sirius walked out of the office (causing the security man to take a step backward) and, spying the chairman of the company who had just exited his own office, the ex-convict started the show.

Making sure to speak extra loudly so that the boss – and as many other people as possible – heard, he began, “’Ey mate, sorry about the confusion, I’m just waiting for me best mate, Vern. Pretty sure that’s his office.”

“Do you mean Mr Dursley?”

Sirius could have crowed with glee when the chairman himself came closer to ask the question. The man was obviously quite disgusted with him, but Sirius didn’t let it bother him as he turned to address the man directly.

“Yeah, that’s right, Dursleys ‘is name. Best mates in college and beyond we were. Haven’t seen him since I got arrested –”

“Arrested?” The security man asked sharply, one hand on a weapon at his belt.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m legitimately out on parole,” Sirius said proudly, forcing himself to stop snickering at the look on peoples faces. “Figured I’d just catch up with ol’ Vern. Seems he’s doin’ well for ‘imself. Lucky bastard always did know how to pick his lawyers well.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you attempted to catch up with him at his home,” the chairman said, remaining coolly polite despite being clearly rattled.

“Yeah, I’ll do that, thanks mate,” Sirius said cheerfully. “’Ey, you wouldn’t mind not mentioning me to ‘im, would you? I wanted to surprise him, is all.”

“I’m sure he will be thrilled to see you again,” the chairman responded dismissively wandering back to his own office, brow furrowed.

“I’ll escort you down,” the security man said firmly.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Sirius responded absently. His keen hearing picked up the chairman requesting his secretary to look deeper into Vernons record. Given the look on Tonks’ face after Sirius had finished telling her what those bastards had done to Harry, they were sure to find quite a few skeletons buried in Vernons closet.

That, and the rumours that would soon be circulating Privet Drive about the Dursleys (courtesy of Arabella Figg) should have the Dursleys quite mortified.

Sirius grinned just thinking about it.

\---------------

Dumbledore returned to his office, huffing slightly. Although he was very active despite his advanced age, constantly dealing with thestrals was a little much even for him.

“Rough day?” Dilys asked him conversationally, a slightly manic twinkle in her eye. Armando Dippet looked at her reproachfully, though he did not dare make mention to Dumbledore what lay in store after seeing what had happened to Phineas’ second portrait when he had questioned Sirius one too many times.

“Quite,” Albus replied heavily, laying his wand down on his desk and collapsing into his chair.

“Perhaps a lemon drop, Albus, those always seem to cheer you up,” Dexter Fortescue suggested cheerfully, sharing a look with his neighbouring portrait.

“Quite right, Dexter,” Albus murmured, taking a lemon drop from the little bowl on his desk. After several seconds of sucking on it the headmaster blanched and attempted to spit it out, but found himself unable to.

“Something the matter, Albus?” Dilys asked innocently, hiding her snickering. Several other portraits were doing the same, though others (Dippet amongst them) were murmuring in disapproval.

“Ugh, it’s a... vomit flavoured Bertie Botts bean,” Albus said, shuddering in disgust as he was forced to continue to suck on it since it seemed there was some spell preventing him from taking it out. He went for his wand so he could attempt a counter spell, but found himself unable to pick it up.

He tugged on it, but there appeared to be another spell keeping it firmly on the desk. Furthermore, as he attempted to move he found he was also stuck to the chair. Experimentally, he tried tugging at the journal left abandoned on his desk but found that it, too, refused to budge. Trying to ignore the less-than-stealthy snickering from the portraits, Dumbledore wondered what on earth was going on.

He narrowed his eyes at the portraits and tried to ask if something had occurred while he’d been preoccupied in the forest but to his horror found that all that came out was bleating.

That was enough for the portraits – even those that had yelled disapprovingly at Sirius while he’d set up the enchantments found themselves collapsing in laughter at the sight of the dignified headmaster completely defenceless and bleating like a goat.

Suddenly, a bright red letter appeared and, before Dumbledore had even considered opening it, began to shout out its message.

_ALRIGHT YOU MANIPULATIVE OLD GOAT, TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK ON HOW YOU’VE BEEN TREATING MY POOR LITTLE GODSON! _

_BUT FIRST OF ALL, I WANT TO WISH YOU GOOD LUCK ON GETTING THROUGH TOMORROWS STAFF MEETING WHILE YOU’RE BLEATING LIKE THE BARMY GOAT YOU ARE. ALSO, GOOD LUCK ON GETTING RID OF THE COMPULSION CHARM ON THOSE SWEETS. I HAD THE LOVELY DILYS HELP ME WITH THOSE._

At that, Dumbledore sent a reproachful look at the former headmistress’ portrait. Dilys merely shrugged at him through her giggles.

_NOW, LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I THINK OF THE DEPLORABLE WAY YOU’VE BEEN RUNNING THAT SCHOOL WHILE MY POOR, LITTLE GODSON HAS BEEN IN ATTENDANCE. I MEAN REALLY, ALBUS, ARE YOU THAT MUCH OF A BLOODY FOOL?!?_

Trying to futilely tug his wand from where it was stuck once again, and when that proved useless tried instead to move his chair away from the booming letter, Dumbledore realised that this was going to be a long, long night.

\-----------------

“Where have you been all day?” Harry asked his godfather curiously from where he was curled up on the couch.

Sirius, who had just entered the house (now garbed in socially acceptable attire), shrugged off his jacket and responded with, “Just needed to take care of some business.”

Carelessly throwing his jacket on the back of the couch, Sirius went over to the couch and dropped down beside Harry, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pressing a kiss to the top of his godsons head.

Remus threw a glare at Sirius as he picked up the jacket and hung it up in the hall closet.

“What kind of business?” Harry asked, not willing to let go of the subject that distracted him from the essay Remus was forcing him to finish.

“Just business,” Sirius replied. Seeing that this answer did not satisfy his godson he decided to distract him by adding, “But you know what it reminded me of...”

“What’s that?” Remus asked, wondering how Sirius was planning to divert Harry’s attention.

“That it’s someone’s birthday coming up...” Sirius teased, grinning down at his godson.

“It is too,” Remus declared warmly, staring at Harry.

The boy blushed slightly at the attention, declaring in a small mumble that “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big a deal?” Sirius demanded in shock. “Are you kidding? My baby’s turning fifteen! That’s a huge deal. We’ll have to invite all your friends, maybe we can hire a band, and we’ll need to get lots of presents, and a huge cake, of course...”

As Sirius continued to ramble on, with Remus chiming in with suggestions, Harry realised that they were determined to spoil him. Although he wasn’t one for big parties, being spoiled by his overprotective guardians was better than being lectured by his overprotective guardians.

Sighing happily, Harry snuggled into his godfather’s half-hug. Life was good.

Everyone else Sirius had encountered that day begged to differ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's quite bizarre looking back at this story since I wrote it in when I was still in high school and now I teach secondary English! For the sake of the original story, I haven't changed the content. I am aware it is fairly OOC but I hope you enjoy it in the spirit it was intended!


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